make a melee attack always be 1 turn

[some12fat2move]

Having melee attacks be faster than a turn results in the ability to kite melee monsters slower than you with a melee attack. This should probably be disabled because it is so tedious. So I propose that attacking at a speed faster than a turn always takes a full turn but will attack multiple times. Not only does this make it impossible to kite with melee attack, it also reduces keypresses with fast weapons. Pseudocode:

  Code:

numberOfAttacks = 10 / delay
remainder = 10 % delay
if remainder != 0
     chance for an extra attack is remainder / delay
     If this chance is passed, numberOfAttacks += 1

Having melee attacks be slower than a turn means that you can be the victim of an incredibly unlikely damage spike from an enemy doubleturn. Unless the devteam considers this desirable, I propose it be fixed by making attacks take one turn with a chance of fumbling if you have excessive delay. Pseudocode:

  Code:

If delay > 10 aut
     chance to attack is 10 / delay
     If this chance fails, a failure message is displayed, like "you fail to swing your unwieldy weapon"

edit: oops this is supposed to be GDD...please move

[Sar]

attacking at a speed faster than a turn always takes a full turn but will attack multiple times

What if the enemy is dead after the first attack?

[some12fat2move]

Well you can't kite an enemy that's dead, so it would be okay if that could be a short action. Or it could waste the turn. Wasting the turn would probably be better for its simplicity so that players could know that taking a swing always takes 1 turn.

[crate]

I don't understand how melee attacks being faster than 1.0 turns allows for kiting against monsters that are speed 10. Can you elaborate?

[some12fat2move]

Ah yes, you must be faster than the monster you are attacking in order to do that. Made an edit.

[njvack]

Moved. I have no idea what this topic means, though.

[pubby]

I like this idea. Not because of kiting, but because it would make judging weapon damage much easier. Also, it would reduce tabbing when using short blades.

[duvessa]

Ah yes, you must be faster than the monster you are attacking in order to do that. Made an edit.

If you are faster than the monster you are attacking, then you can melee kite with 10 aut attacks too. Or, y'know, with any ranged attack; not sure how those are any better.

[Zammy]

I must say I really don't get why OP thinks it's bad to be able to kite with melee attacks.
Tedious? So how is it any less tedious than kiting with magic/ranged?

And there have been several occasions where I want to distribute the fast attacks to several monsters and not all to just one.
Like hitting surrounding draconians with freezing weapon to slow them.

And would this really reduce amout of keypresses that much? And is that really necessary since that is a fighting situation anyway, not just hitting 5 to wait out poison.

Overall, I personally think this is a horrible idea.

[partial]

harder =/= better

[Hirsch I]

"the higher the better"
-Bill Gates

[TeshiAlair]

IRL, fencers kite with melee attacks.

[some12fat2move]

If you are faster than the monster you are attacking, then you can melee kite with 10 aut attacks too. Or, y'know, with any ranged attack; not sure how those are any better.

Those attacks are better because they are fairly easy to kite with - if there is distance between you and the enemy, strike, then move until you get some distance, strike. Rinse and repeat. Same goes for polearms (I believe that is what you mean when you say melee kite with 10 aut attacks?). But kiting by hitting something in the face is much more tedious. You read the text to see if it just swung at you or not and move only if it didn't, then think about how many steps to take which is based on your attack speed and relative movement speed. If you aren't much faster it'll be like four or five steps between attacks, then if you see something slower maybe two or three. As the battle goes on you get feedback on if you made a mistake (getting distance from the enemy means you moved to much, getting attacked means you moved too little) and adjust accordingly (like, that fourth step took me out of melee range, maybe I need three steps per strike in this fight...). Another option is to do math to figure out exactly how many steps per strike.

You may say it is some silly OCD behavior with very little benefit but if you are hurt, say you are at 70% hp, and you see a melee enemy, fighting normally will cost you piety because you will have to rest more afterwards, while leaving it will cost you exp (and floor cleanness) because you won't have killed it. If you kill it slowly with kiting, you will get the exp without taking damage and it will not cost you any time because you were at 70% hp and wanted to rest anyway. This is not that big of a problem with distance kiting because it is a relatively simple and quick process but, as I illustrated, kiting by hitting stuff in the face is much more tedious.

[jejorda2]

I'm pretty sure "fast weapons hit more than once per keystroke" is how it works in Angband. The way it works in crawl was one of the first things I decided I like better about crawl, along with ctrl-f and autoexplore. I know those move in different directions, but I don't like not being able to abort when I run into "Oh, this thing has high AC and I should be using a different tactic".

[and into]

If you are faster than the monster you are attacking, then you can melee kite with 10 aut attacks too. Or, y'know, with any ranged attack; not sure how those are any better.

Those attacks are better because they are fairly easy to kite with - if there is distance between you and the enemy, strike, then move until you get some distance, strike. Rinse and repeat. Same goes for polearms (I believe that is what you mean when you say melee kite with 10 aut attacks?). But kiting by hitting something in the face is much more tedious. You read the text to see if it just swung at you or not and move only if it didn't, then think about how many steps to take which is based on your attack speed and relative movement speed. If you aren't much faster it'll be like four or five steps between attacks, then if you see something slower maybe two or three. As the battle goes on you get feedback on if you made a mistake (getting distance from the enemy means you moved to much, getting attacked means you moved too little) and adjust accordingly (like, that fourth step took me out of melee range, maybe I need three steps per strike in this fight...). Another option is to do math to figure out exactly how many steps per strike.

I guess you could make the argument that it is bad that it can be annoying to figure out how many steps to take when trying some sort of hit and run using melee against certain enemies. But the fact that you need to take four or five steps back actually helps prevent kiting from being too good. If you have to run around a lot (even if it is just in a circle) you are running a considerable risk that something else pops up behind you.

Anyway, the more pressing point is that enemies that are slower than the player just aren't that threatening and often are not interesting, in the first place. Fortunately there aren't too many enemies like that (unless you are playing Centaur or Spriggan). Anything you can kite in the way you describe is also something you can just run away from. Which is in part why things like elephant slugs and uniques like Roxanne exist—to teach players that they can and *should* run away and ignore stuff sometimes, and it is okay.

[Siegurt]

If you are faster than the monster you are attacking, then you can melee kite with 10 aut attacks too. Or, y'know, with any ranged attack; not sure how those are any better.

Those attacks are better because they are fairly easy to kite with - if there is distance between you and the enemy, strike, then move until you get some distance, strike. Rinse and repeat. Same goes for polearms (I believe that is what you mean when you say melee kite with 10 aut attacks?). But kiting by hitting something in the face is much more tedious. You read the text to see if it just swung at you or not and move only if it didn't, then think about how many steps to take which is based on your attack speed and relative movement speed. If you aren't much faster it'll be like four or five steps between attacks, then if you see something slower maybe two or three. As the battle goes on you get feedback on if you made a mistake (getting distance from the enemy means you moved to much, getting attacked means you moved too little) and adjust accordingly (like, that fourth step took me out of melee range, maybe I need three steps per strike in this fight...). Another option is to do math to figure out exactly how many steps per strike.

You may say it is some silly OCD behavior with very little benefit but if you are hurt, say you are at 70% hp, and you see a melee enemy, fighting normally will cost you piety because you will have to rest more afterwards, while leaving it will cost you exp (and floor cleanness) because you won't have killed it. If you kill it slowly with kiting, you will get the exp without taking damage and it will not cost you any time because you were at 70% hp and wanted to rest anyway. This is not that big of a problem with distance kiting because it is a relatively simple and quick process but, as I illustrated, kiting by hitting stuff in the face is much more tedious.

Note that this process is still available (although slower, more limited and even more tedious) if your attacks take 10 aut, in order to have kiting with range-1-melee not be a thing at all, you'd have to have your attacks be slower than *all* creatures, since some creatures take 3.0 AUT per action you'd have to unleash 3.0 AUT's worth of attacks with each action, which is in many cases likely to get you killed.

An option would be "Unleash attacks until any monster you are in combat with gets an action" But that's still horrible and detracts immensely from the tactical part of the game (Really kiting is just exploiting the tactical elements of the game to an excessive degree, knowing when and how to retreat and use the terrain to your advantage is what makes crawl a good game.)

Unfortunately your suggestion to remove some tedium would remove a very very large portion of the fundamental tactical elements of crawl, in order to remove a tactic which is only useful in situations where you could much more simply not engage at all.

[some12fat2move]

I guess you could make the argument that it is bad that it can be annoying to figure out how many steps to take when trying some sort of hit and run using melee against certain enemies. But the fact that you need to take four or five steps back actually helps prevent kiting from being too good. If you have to run around a lot (even if it is just in a circle) you are running a considerable risk that something else pops up behind you.

This is true of all kiting and my proposal does not change this. I just want to get rid of the ability to do this with non-reaching melee weapons.

Anyway, the more pressing point is that enemies that are slower than the player just aren't that threatening and often are not interesting, in the first place. Fortunately there aren't too many enemies like that (unless you are playing Centaur or Spriggan). Anything you can kite in the way you describe is also something you can just run away from. Which is in part why things like elephant slugs and uniques like Roxanne exist—to teach players that they can and *should* run away and ignore stuff sometimes, and it is okay.

This is true but I don't see how it is relevant. The fact that you don't have to fight them doesn't make it okay to have a tedious, optimal (well, often optimal) way to do so. "You can choose to forfeit the reward if you don't like the tedium" is not good game design.

Note that this process is still available (although slower, more limited and even more tedious) if your attacks take 10 aut, in order to have kiting with range-1-melee not be a thing at all, you'd have to have your attacks be slower than *all* creatures, since some creatures take 3.0 AUT per action you'd have to unleash 3.0 AUT's worth of attacks with each action, which is in many cases likely to get you killed.

There must be something you know that I don't, because I can't think of any reason a monster would take more than 1 turn to act unless it was slowed.

[and into]

Note that this process is still available (although slower, more limited and even more tedious) if your attacks take 10 aut, in order to have kiting with range-1-melee not be a thing at all, you'd have to have your attacks be slower than *all* creatures, since some creatures take 3.0 AUT per action you'd have to unleash 3.0 AUT's worth of attacks with each action, which is in many cases likely to get you killed.

There must be something you know that I don't, because I can't think of any reason a monster would take more than 1 turn to act unless it was slowed.

For all non-player entities in the dungeon, movement speed and attack speed are identical. Elephant Slugs don't just move very slowly, they attack very slowly too. (Slower than 10 aut.) Fast moving guys get multiple attacks in a 10 aut period. This is what duvessa and Siegurt are referring to. This is one of the handful of very major asymmetries between the player's character and enemies.

Also, again, extended kiting often carries a risk in practice even on well-cleared floors, so it is not as simple as "leave it and lose exp., or tediously kite it for the exp." And at some point, tediously killing every single non-threatening but high-HP and time-consuming dude is "optimal" in the same way that "never using autoexplore" is "optimal." The advantage is just so small and the convenience cost so high that there isn't a compelling reason to do it. Instead people do a combination of manual exploration and autoexplore, and kite stuff when it makes sense to do so (including by using haste or whatever). Admittedly spriggans and centaurs can be played very differently from that, though, but some species are special.

I think the real problem is that there are too many monsters that are very slow and have nothing else going for them. Boulder Beetles are great now thanks to the rolling attack, Goliath Beetles showing up really early (on like D3 to D8) are probably okay, and Gastronok should definitely be kept. But otherwise the giant snails, giant slugs, elephant slugs, etc. should learn some interesting trick or they should be merged into one (relatively rare) beefy slow monster. And even then you should make the beefy slow monster agoraphobic so it prefers hanging out in corridors and tight places, as that is the only time it might make a difference.

[some12fat2move]

For all non-player entities in the dungeon, movement speed and attack speed are identical. Elephant Slugs don't just move very slowly, they attack very slowly too. (Slower than 10 aut.) Fast moving guys get multiple attacks in a 10 aut period. This is what duvessa and Siegurt are referring to. This is one of the handful of very major asymmetries between the player's character and enemies.

Wow. Just did a test in wizard mode and it seems you're right. I never knew that...guess my proposal isn't so great after all. However there is still this:

Having melee attacks be slower than a turn means that you can be the victim of an incredibly unlikely damage spike from an enemy doubleturn. Unless the devteam considers this desirable, I propose it be fixed by making attacks take one turn with a chance of fumbling if you have excessive delay. Pseudocode:

  Code:

If delay > 10 aut
     chance to attack is 10 / delay
     If this chance fails, a failure message is displayed, like "you fail to swing your unwieldy weapon"

Which might be worth considering.