EW1 Improvement

[plantaspoon]

Enchant weapon 1 currently loses its relevance by mid dungeon. Accuracy is not a relevant issue once the player reaches a middling level of weapon skill, causing EW1 to lose it's strategic worth as the player advances through the dungeon. With the weapon and weapon skill reform which removes the breakpoints on the swing speed curve. I am proposing that EW1 also move the player up the speed curve as if he had an increased weapon skill. This would keep EW1 relevant throughout the entire game.

Balance is something that can be worked out, but as a start I'd like to throw out that +1 enchantment would be equal to approximately 0.5 weapon skill levels worth of speed increase.

[ApsychicRat]

Hmm, i like this idea, EW 1 would still become irrelevant but it would change the early game for melee characters.

far as i build and i see a lot of others do you get weapon skill to min delay then get your other skills online, if this was implemented one would need less investment in weapon skill right away at least for delay, weapon skill still provides base accuracy and damage so you could choose weather you needed to hit better or defense or something.

i vote for trying it in trunk and seeing how it goes.

[Sar]

What if we remove accuracy bonus instead? In my experience, it rarely factors in weapon choice. Weapon skill/Fighting effect on accuracy can stay.

[ackack]

I think this thread is underrating accuracy pretty strongly. For example, try melee combat as a Short Blades user with and without Sure Blade.

[and into]

EW1 is fine as it is. Basically it gives you a free accuracy bonus up to a certain point, which is good. "Loses its relevance by mid dungeon" assumes that 1.) you've had a relatively EW1-rich game; 2.) you have found a weapon worth sticking with, and have decided to stick with using that; 3.) you somehow know that you will not find any auxiliary or back up weapons that you might want to use. Based on those same assumptions one could argue that all weapons should stop generating after D:12. EW1 is weaker than other strategic consumables but obviously that's fine.

[Arkhan]

I'd like if it didn't sometimes just refuse to work as the overall enchantment got stronger. You tend to find something shiny and white eventually anyway, right?

[Lasty]

You don't need an artifact weapon to ascend, and for the majority of characters, an artifact weapon will probably not be the best choice.

[plantaspoon]

My statement that they lose relevance by mid game is based on by the time a character puts enough points into a skill to get it to a reasonable delay they almost never miss the target even with +0 weapon. There is almost no benefit to adding the accuracy unless you are unskilled in the weapon. It has nothing to do with the rarity of the EW1 scroll.

[Sandman25]

Fighting 20.

  Code:

Attack: Minotaur Fighter vs. orb of fire (4000 rounds) (2014/03/04/17:48:23)
Minotaur Fighter: XL 27   Str 23   Int 4   Dex 13
Wielding: +0,+5 spear of freezing, Skill: Polearms
orb of fire: HD 30   AC 20   EV 20

  Polearms | AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
         0 |      2.7 |     26 |      44% |   1.2 |   110  |  0.91 |      1.1
         1 |      2.9 |     25 |      43% |   1.3 |   105  |  0.95 |      1.2
         2 |      2.8 |     30 |      44% |   1.3 |   100  |  1.00 |      1.3
         3 |      2.8 |     29 |      45% |   1.3 |    95  |  1.05 |      1.3
         4 |      2.8 |     31 |      45% |   1.3 |    90  |  1.11 |      1.4
         5 |      2.9 |     26 |      46% |   1.3 |    85  |  1.18 |      1.6
         6 |      2.8 |     23 |      46% |   1.3 |    80  |  1.25 |      1.6
         7 |      3.0 |     31 |      45% |   1.4 |    75  |  1.33 |      1.8
         8 |      3.0 |     28 |      45% |   1.4 |    70  |  1.43 |      2.0
         9 |      3.1 |     25 |      48% |   1.5 |    65  |  1.54 |      2.3
        10 |      3.4 |     31 |      46% |   1.6 |    60  |  1.67 |      2.6
        11 |      3.5 |     28 |      46% |   1.6 |    55  |  1.81 |      2.9
        12 |      3.3 |     31 |      47% |   1.6 |    50  |  2.00 |      3.2
        13 |      3.4 |     27 |      47% |   1.6 |    50  |  2.00 |      3.2
        14 |      3.5 |     24 |      47% |   1.7 |    50  |  2.00 |      3.3
        15 |      3.4 |     28 |      47% |   1.6 |    50  |  2.00 |      3.2
        16 |      3.5 |     29 |      47% |   1.7 |    50  |  2.00 |      3.3
        17 |      3.5 |     27 |      48% |   1.7 |    50  |  2.00 |      3.4
        18 |      3.6 |     27 |      49% |   1.8 |    50  |  2.00 |      3.6
        19 |      3.6 |     38 |      48% |   1.8 |    50  |  2.00 |      3.5
        20 |      3.9 |     29 |      47% |   1.9 |    50  |  2.00 |      3.7
        21 |      4.0 |     37 |      48% |   1.9 |    50  |  2.00 |      3.9
        22 |      4.0 |     30 |      48% |   2.0 |    50  |  2.00 |      3.9
        23 |      4.0 |     31 |      49% |   2.0 |    50  |  2.00 |      4.0
        24 |      4.0 |     34 |      48% |   1.9 |    50  |  2.00 |      3.9
        25 |      4.1 |     28 |      49% |   2.0 |    50  |  2.00 |      4.1
        26 |      4.4 |     35 |      49% |   2.2 |    50  |  2.00 |      4.4
        27 |      4.1 |     30 |      50% |   2.1 |    50  |  2.00 |      4.2
-----------------------------------


  Code:

Attack: Minotaur Fighter vs. yak (4000 rounds) (2014/03/05/22:18:18)
Minotaur Fighter: XL 27   Str 23   Int 4   Dex 17
Wielding: +4,+4 spear, Skill: Polearms
yak: HD 7   AC 4   EV 7

  Polearms | AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
         0 |      7.2 |     29 |      80% |   5.8 |   110  |  0.91 |      5.2
         1 |      7.2 |     29 |      80% |   5.8 |   105  |  0.95 |      5.5
         2 |      7.2 |     32 |      80% |   5.8 |   100  |  1.00 |      5.8
         3 |      7.1 |     32 |      80% |   5.7 |    95  |  1.05 |      6.0
         4 |      7.2 |     29 |      80% |   5.8 |    90  |  1.11 |      6.5
         5 |      7.2 |     30 |      79% |   5.7 |    85  |  1.18 |      6.7
         6 |      7.2 |     31 |      80% |   5.8 |    80  |  1.25 |      7.3
         7 |      7.4 |     28 |      79% |   5.9 |    75  |  1.33 |      7.9
         8 |      7.4 |     30 |      80% |   6.0 |    70  |  1.43 |      8.5
         9 |      7.6 |     30 |      82% |   6.3 |    65  |  1.54 |      9.7
        10 |      7.8 |     31 |      80% |   6.3 |    60  |  1.67 |     10.5
        11 |      7.9 |     34 |      79% |   6.3 |    55  |  1.82 |     11.5
        12 |      7.9 |     31 |      79% |   6.3 |    50  |  2.00 |     12.6
        13 |      8.1 |     37 |      79% |   6.4 |    50  |  2.00 |     12.9
        14 |      8.1 |     30 |      79% |   6.5 |    50  |  2.00 |     12.9
        15 |      8.2 |     32 |      80% |   6.6 |    50  |  2.00 |     13.1
        16 |      8.0 |     31 |      82% |   6.6 |    50  |  2.00 |     13.2
        17 |      8.3 |     34 |      81% |   6.7 |    50  |  2.00 |     13.5
        18 |      8.2 |     34 |      81% |   6.7 |    50  |  2.00 |     13.4
        19 |      8.4 |     31 |      80% |   6.8 |    50  |  2.00 |     13.6
        20 |      8.4 |     34 |      81% |   6.8 |    50  |  2.00 |     13.7
        21 |      8.6 |     32 |      82% |   7.1 |    50  |  2.00 |     14.2
        22 |      8.7 |     35 |      81% |   7.1 |    50  |  2.00 |     14.2
        23 |      8.7 |     34 |      82% |   7.2 |    50  |  2.00 |     14.3
        24 |      8.8 |     40 |      83% |   7.4 |    50  |  2.00 |     14.7
        25 |      9.1 |     40 |      82% |   7.5 |    50  |  2.00 |     14.9
        26 |      9.0 |     33 |      82% |   7.4 |    50  |  2.00 |     14.7
        27 |      9.1 |     36 |      80% |   7.3 |    50  |  2.00 |     14.6
-----------------------------------


  Code:

Attack: Minotaur Fighter vs. curse skull (4000 rounds) (2014/03/04/17:47:50)
Minotaur Fighter: XL 27   Str 23   Int 4   Dex 13
Wielding: +0,+5 spear of freezing, Skill: Polearms
curse skull: HD 13   AC 25   EV 3

  Polearms | AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
         0 |      2.3 |     24 |      90% |   2.1 |   110  |  0.91 |      1.9
         1 |      2.0 |     23 |      90% |   1.8 |   105  |  0.95 |      1.7
         2 |      2.3 |     26 |      90% |   2.1 |   100  |  1.00 |      2.1
         3 |      2.1 |     25 |      90% |   1.9 |    95  |  1.05 |      2.0
         4 |      2.1 |     25 |      90% |   1.9 |    90  |  1.11 |      2.1
         5 |      2.2 |     25 |      91% |   2.0 |    85  |  1.18 |      2.3
         6 |      2.2 |     26 |      91% |   2.0 |    80  |  1.25 |      2.5
         7 |      2.2 |     26 |      90% |   2.0 |    75  |  1.33 |      2.6
         8 |      2.3 |     28 |      89% |   2.1 |    70  |  1.43 |      3.0
         9 |      2.3 |     30 |      91% |   2.1 |    65  |  1.54 |      3.2
        10 |      2.4 |     28 |      90% |   2.2 |    60  |  1.67 |      3.7
        11 |      2.3 |     27 |      90% |   2.1 |    55  |  1.82 |      3.9
        12 |      2.4 |     31 |      91% |   2.2 |    50  |  2.00 |      4.4
        13 |      2.5 |     33 |      90% |   2.3 |    50  |  2.00 |      4.6
        14 |      2.5 |     31 |      90% |   2.2 |    50  |  2.00 |      4.5
        15 |      2.5 |     29 |      91% |   2.2 |    50  |  2.00 |      4.5
        16 |      2.6 |     30 |      91% |   2.4 |    50  |  2.00 |      4.8
        17 |      2.6 |     28 |      91% |   2.3 |    50  |  2.00 |      4.7
        18 |      2.6 |     32 |      91% |   2.4 |    50  |  2.00 |      4.9
        19 |      2.7 |     31 |      90% |   2.4 |    50  |  2.00 |      4.9
        20 |      2.7 |     28 |      91% |   2.4 |    50  |  2.00 |      4.9
        21 |      2.7 |     30 |      91% |   2.4 |    50  |  2.00 |      4.9
        22 |      2.9 |     35 |      90% |   2.6 |    50  |  2.00 |      5.2
        23 |      3.0 |     29 |      91% |   2.7 |    50  |  2.00 |      5.4
        24 |      3.0 |     31 |      91% |   2.8 |    50  |  2.00 |      5.5
        25 |      2.8 |     30 |      92% |   2.6 |    50  |  2.00 |      5.2
        26 |      3.1 |     30 |      91% |   2.8 |    50  |  2.00 |      5.6
        27 |      3.0 |     31 |      91% |   2.8 |    50  |  2.00 |      5.5
-----------------------------------

[Sar]

what

Maybe you should use different weapons versus same foe if you want to prove something about how one or another thing is more important?

[Sandman25]

what

Maybe you should use different weapons versus same foe if you want to prove something about how one or another thing is more important?

Polearms 27 gives bigger bonus to accuracy than +9 weapon enchantment when comparing to Polearms 0. My point was that accuracy is always important as you can see in results vs Orb of Fire, it is wrong to say that it is not important after middle game.

[johlstei]

I have no idea what you are trying to show in that chart. As Sar says, the best way to show the effect of accuracy would be using the same weapon against the same foe with varying accuracy bonuses. I don't know what you are trying to demonstrate by varying multiple variables(the enemy EV and your polearm skill) while leaving weapon accuracy enchantment(the thing the topic is about) constant.

[Sandman25]

My statement that they lose relevance by mid game is based on by the time a character puts enough points into a skill to get it to a reasonable delay they almost never miss the target even with +0 weapon.

I was trying to prove that the above sentence is wrong. Sorry if it wasn't clear.

[Sar]

Okay, I guess I did fuck up big time wrt accuracy relevancy (and I still have no idea how to evaluate it when it comes to weapon choice, but 99% of the time I will use a generic weapon I can enchant both damage-wise and accuracy-wise anyway, so it's no big deal), but my point still stands. Running fsim vs. an OoF with a +0 acc weapon and a +9 acc weapon would look prove your point more clearly.

[Sandman25]

Running fsim vs. an OoF with a +0 acc weapon and a +9 acc weapon would look prove your point more clearly.

Unfortunately difference between +0 and +9 weapon is barely noticeable indeed (at high weapon/fighting skill) but that was not my point. So far my participation in the discussion included only thanking ackack's post about Sure Blade which is a very good spell indeed (it adds accuracy after roll so it can be better than +30 weapon enchantment) and since accuracy can be really low (see fsim vs Orb of Fire) it is important.

[Sar]

Oh, so your point was just "accuracy can matter because enemies with crazy EV occasionally exist" then?

[Sandman25]

No, my points were:
1) Sure blade is a good spell, increased accuracy is never bad
2) Sentence with meaning "+0 weapon has about 100% accuracy anyway" is wrong.

But if you are interested in my opinion about the whole subject:
1) Early game weapon accuracy matters because you have low fighting/weapon so EW1 are very useful
2) Middle game I usually use several weapons (anti-hydra/antimagic/flaming/freezing etc.) so EW1 are very useful
3) Late game I want my end-game weapon have +9 for occasional high EV targets and since it is very hard to enchant weapon up to +9, EW1 scrolls are still useful.

[dck]

Eugh.
Regardless, I like EW1 as it is because it allows me to enchant the first big weapon I want to use early on and it has a moderate impact on how good that weapon is given the low skills in melee I am expected to have at that moment.
Later down the road +acc loses its weight unless it's a ridiculous source of it like sure blade, but I think that's okay and having the two common enchanting scrolls be used differently is also okay and in fact good.

[Baldu3]

Also accuracy on weapons is super useful for magic blasters with low fighting/weapon skill to clear the wimps without using mana.

[plantaspoon]

The issue I'm trying to improve is the decreasing usefulness of accuracy as skill increases. I'm not arguing that accuracy(and ew1) is useless. I'm trying to improve upon the late game value of accuracy(and ew1) for characters who have heavy skill investment into the weapon skill.

In actual play, I feel as though I stop noticing accuracy at around 12-15 weapon skill for most 1 handers and around 18-20 for some of the larger 2 handers. Past this point increasing the accuracy of my weapon doesn't really upgrade the weapon.

[asdu]

Polearms 27 gives bigger bonus to accuracy than +9 weapon enchantment when comparing to Polearms 0. My point was that accuracy is always important as you can see in results vs Orb of Fire, it is wrong to say that it is not important after middle game.

I must be misreading those tables, because to me they seem to prove the exact opposite of what you're claiming. It's actually kind of shocking, really. Only in the case of the OoF (whose EV is matched by very few enemies in the entire game) there seems to be any appreciable difference between 0 and 27 weapon skill, and even then that difference is minuscule (and who the hell would fight an OoF in melee with 0 weapon skill anyway).
In fact those tables seem to indicate that accuracy matters a lot less than it's usually given credit for (which is very little to begin with), and, if accuracy from weapon enchantment really matters even less than accuracy from weapon skill, then EW I scrolls are complete and utter junk.
But I AM misreading those tables, right? There's no way that someone with max polearms skills only lands a hit 6% more often than someone with 0.

[crate]

There's no way that someone with max polearms skills only lands a hit 6% more often than someone with 0.

This is confused by the fact that he's testing at fighting 20 for some reason, which is an enormous accuracy boost by itself.

[Sandman25]

Yes, without 20 levels in fighting more fights will be closer to one vs Orb of Fire (about 50% chance to hit). It is not rare to miss very often when fighting Killer Bees or Spriggans for example. Or even adders.

[some12fat2move]

But I AM misreading those tables, right? There's no way that someone with max polearms skills only lands a hit 6% more often than someone with 0.

That's six percentage points of accuracy, since the accuracy goes from 44% to 50%. But going from 44 hits out of 100 to 50 hits out of 100 increases your number of hits to 50/44 ≈ 113.6% of the number of hits. So in this test it increased the number of hits by about 13.6%. But I agree with crate that the test situation was pretty odd, since fighting an OOF and having fighting 20 are things that never happen to most characters.

Yes, without 20 levels in fighting more fights will be closer to one vs Orb of Fire (about 50% chance to hit). It is not rare to miss very often when fighting Killer Bees or Spriggans for example. Or even adders.

I'm not totally sure how it works, but I would guess that the impact of each point of +1 accuracy would be most pronounced in early-game fights where you have low accuracy to begin with.

[Sandman25]

There are many factors that affect to-hit so the more to-hit you have from other sources the less significant weapon enchantment becomes.
Wiki explains all details and is correct as far as I know.

[plantaspoon]

Sandman, That is my understanding as well and it's what I wanted to improve with this proposal. In the hands of a master, a +0 accuracy weapon and a +9 accuracy weapon do the same damage.

[Sandman25]

I see. Sorry for derailing the thread.

[and into]

But that's kind of a good thing. Enemies that are difficult to approach (due to ranged attacks or whatever) can be fun and interesting, but enemies that are just hard to hit due to super high EV tend to be annoying and aren't much fun. So making +accuracy matter more by making stuff harder to hit will really degrade the quality of the game. When you've invested a lot of skill into a weapon you shouldn't whiff a bunch when you use it. +accuracy has a small impact at some points in the game, against certain enemies, but has a more significant impact in early game and also against certain other enemies. Since it is always a beneficial thing to have you don't have to worry about which enemies are which though, if you don't want to. Overall I'd say that's a good place to be. Also if something is helpful and usually available in early game, then it is useful, period.

[Lasty]

Making the accuracy enchantment of a weapon better wouldn't necessarily make high EV enemies more irritating. You would just need to make the bonus not be a flat addition to the character's total accuracy stat.

For example, the accuracy enchantment could add an (acc_enchantment * 5)% chance to hit before checking EV; or the accuracy enchantment could be added as a flat percentage bonus to the chance to hit (e.g. 75% chance to hit and +9 acc weapon would be 84% chance to hit).

I haven't see any devs make it clear that they agree that any adjustment to weapon accuracy enchantment is needed, but if there were a will to do that, it would be entirely doable.

[plantaspoon]

Andinto, I wasn't suggesting changing the way accuracy works in the game currently (although this could be a good way to create the stated devs desire of a tiered weapon choice, that's a topic for another thread). I was just looking for a way to make EW1 and the first + stat on a weapon relevant throughout the entire game. My thought was if the first stat ALSO included a bonus to the weapon speed then even a master would see some benefit from it.

With the removal of the min delay breakpoints and smoothing of the delay curve it seems very logical to allow enchantments to move the player slightly up and down the speed curve without going to the extreme of the "of speed" brand on the weapon.

[Igxfl]

There's an inherent power cap on accuracy as currently implemented.

Suppose I'm in the early midgame, hitting things with a plain falchion at a mediocre skill level. Say I hit most things ~65% of the time. If I find a +9/+0 falchion, even if it were to kick that figure up to 100% range, it's only 1.5x the damage. If I find a +0/+9 falchion, it's about double (base damage is 8). This difference gets more pronounced as skill accuracy goes up, since you get closer and closer to the 100% accuracy ceiling. If we want accuracy to be useful without adding lots of obnoxious high EV enemies, we need to add some benefit to having much more accuracy than is necessary.

[dck]

Well there already is a benefit to doing that in really big amounts, like for example with sure blade.
I think accuracy and for that matter EW1 are pretty good as they are because they have their place in crawl's weapon system without slamming against one of combat's shortcomings, which is the lack of feedback the player has when missing a lot.

[crate]

If you want to make ew1 more meaningful how about just doubling the effect of to-hit enchantment on weapon accuracy? (And correspondingly decreasing accuracy across the board for non-starting-weapons by 2 or 3 or something). You don't need to adjust starting weapons because they'd still get outclassed pretty easily by better weapons later on, and they don't need to be made worse.

I'm not convinced this is a thing that has to happen but it is a simple tweak.

(This is much like the stat gain mutations: 1 point was not very meaningful, so they got adjusted to 2 points per level and now seem meaningful sometimes!)

[Amnesiac]

You can burn all your ew1 scrolls to make a +9 blowgun - a very powerful tool. That's what I often do.

[damiac]

If you want to make ew1 more meaningful how about just doubling the effect of to-hit enchantment on weapon accuracy? (And correspondingly decreasing accuracy across the board for non-starting-weapons by 2 or 3 or something). You don't need to adjust starting weapons because they'd still get outclassed pretty easily by better weapons later on, and they don't need to be made worse.

I'm not convinced this is a thing that has to happen but it is a simple tweak.

(This is much like the stat gain mutations: 1 point was not very meaningful, so they got adjusted to 2 points per level and now seem meaningful sometimes!)

That seems like a good idea to me. It's at least a good place to start.

Right now, accuracy is in a very weird place. It kind of sort of matters very early on. Later on, because you get so much through your weapon and fighting skill, you're not going to see any difference between a +0 and a +9 weapon in any practical situation. With high EV monsters, maybe you'll hit 51% of the time instead of 50%, with low EV monsters, you hit 91% instead of 90%. It's meaningless in both situations.

But the presence of high EV monsters suggests that the player is supposed to be able to do something about it. Usually high EV monsters have lower hps than average, so the logical idea would be that you would use a lower damage, higher accuracy weapon on them. But in practice, the difference between the most accurate and least accurate weapons in the game is meaningless.

I think it'd be more interesting if my melee character types carried their big two hander for the normal EV enemies, but carried some smaller, more accurate weapon to deal with the killer bees and spriggans and what not. As it stands now, there's no reason to ever pick accuracy over damage. a +9, +0 weapon is worse than a +0, +1 weapon, and to me that suggests something should be adjusted.

[Sandman25]

If weapon accuracy bonus is made more meaningful, then it can make sense to have limit on combined weapon enchantment similar to how rings of slaying are limited. So you would have a choice between 0,+9 weapon and +4,+5 weapon, for example. Otherwise +9,+9 weapon is optimal vs everything.

[Leafsnail]

Do you really want to make it so that you have to use different weapons against monsters with different EVs? Especially considering that monster EV is an entirely hidden mechanic.

[Sandman25]

Do you really want to make it so that you have to use different weapons against monsters with different EVs? Especially considering that monster EV is an entirely hidden mechanic.

Yes, you are right, it does not make sense as long as EV is not displayed in game.

[Amnesiac]

What if the chance of hitting the monster would be displayed in it's description? This clarity would be somewhat not characteristic for the traditional crawl, but since we have spell fail chance displayed, why not? The relative damage is quite easy to find out and so is the chance to hit, by making like 100 attacks, so I don't see much reason to hide this. And while I'm not sure that showing too many numbers is a good idea( but I think it would make crawl a more popular and will save a lot of time for new players), some relevant stuff like monsters MR as opposed to your spell power or your chance to hit the monster with the current weapon could be displayed to make it clearer if it's a good idea to try doing this or that to a monster. This way usefulness of ew1 would be more clear as well, since you'll see by what number your accuracy has increased.

[crate]

Otherwise +9,+9 weapon is optimal vs everything.

This isn't a problem. +10 plate armour is "optimal" also. Is that bad? Using good weapons being "optimal" is a good thing.

[Sandman25]

Otherwise +9,+9 weapon is optimal vs everything.

This isn't a problem. +10 plate armour is "optimal" also. Is that bad? Using good weapons being "optimal" is a good thing.

Yes, it can be bad. Most players use several of holy/antimagic/freezing/flaming weapons depending on monster. In my current game I have +9 chain armour (Dex+2), +8 fairy dragon armour (Str-4, Dex-3) and +2 FDA and I used all of them in different branches and depending on my Armour/Dodging skill, that was fun.

[crate]

Most players use several of holy/antimagic/freezing/flaming weapons depending on monster.

There's your reason to not just use all your enchant scrolls on one weapon then. Sounds to me like your proposal actually would reduce decision-making in this particular case! (Since the fact you have limited enchant weapon scrolls becomes much less important; you just enchant every weapon you are using to its maximum enchantment.)

[Sandman25]

There's your reason to not just use all your enchant scrolls on one weapon then. Sounds to me like your proposal actually would reduce decision-making in this particular case! (Since the fact you have limited enchant weapon scrolls becomes much less important; you just enchant every weapon you are using to its maximum enchantment.)

I am not sure I was understood properly. With my proposal there are several possible maximal enchantments: (0,+9),(+1,+8),(+2,+7)...(+8,+1), (+9,+0). I don't see how it reduces decision-making.

[and into]

I don't think weapon enchantment and its effects on melee need to be made more opaque and convoluted by having it be "optimal" to have a set of appropriately min-maxed accuracy and damage weapons, in addition to any mix of brands you want.

Weapon swapping is fairly well supported but it is only interesting, IMO, when you swap from one completely different type of weapon to another—e.g., one melee weapon for one with distortion (under Lugonu) or a fast weapon in order to cast Warp Weapon on it, or a melee weapon for a crossbow. It isn't very fun to switch from one weapon to another that deals better average damage to a specific type of enemy, but which is completely identical to your main weapon when it comes to all tactical considerations. There's generally not *too* many times where it is significantly advantageous to do that, though, so mostly its fine. However I strongly reject the idea that anything should be *added* to the game that emphasizes weapon swapping tactically identical weapons for slight increases in dam/aut.

[argonaut]

Two other options for making accuracy enchantments mean more:
1) let the higher plus count for corrosion resistance - right now only the damage plus counts
2) give a 1 in item.plus chance for a weapon to do full base damage on a "critical" hit

[damiac]

Well, right now in crawl there already are weapons which are more accurate than others, intrinsically. But that difference is currently meaningless in almost all cases.
Right now you would use your freezing weapon on a cold vulnerable monster, and your fire weapon on a cold resistant monster, so why doesn't it make sense to use your accurate weapon on hard to hit, low HP enemies, and your inaccurate, hard hitting two hander on the low EV HP sacks?

Why do weapons even have intrinsic accuracy if it is utterly meaningless in weapon choice? This seems like a good opportunity to make it so using the biggest weapon you can find isn't a no brainer. The idea that a hybrid with mediocre weapon skill might want to stick with a more accurate, but less damaging weapon than a trog follower with high weapon skill, who can afford to swing the less accurate weapon, due to his higher skill.

Argonaut's suggestions are also interesting, and less drastic

[and into]

@damiac:

First, because enemy EV is more opaque than fire/cold vulnerability. Doubly so, in fact: 1.) vulnerabilities are displayed with e(x)amine; 2.) the way EV works and how much +acc helps is mechanistically not nearly so clear. The first you could fix fairly easily, not so much the second. An enemy would need very high EV for carrying around a specifically "accuracy-centric" weapon to make a difference. Very few enemies are like that, and it would still be opaque as to how much EV an enemy needs to have vs. how much accuracy you need for a +acc but lower dam weapon to be better. Compare to rF- or rC-, which is literally just "does flat % more when hit with cold/fire stuff." Much easier to exploit, and thus much more meaningful for doing that if you want to, as compared to just a small increase to av effective damage.

Second, because swapping tactically identical but slightly more damaging weapons is boring, as I said above, and isn't a good thing to encourage more of. Doubling the effect of +acc would be a buff but probably wouldn't make it a good idea to hit ' against high EV enemies. And even if it did, many more high EV enemies would have to be added to the game before carting around a higher acc, but lower damage, weapon, but adding lots of high EV enemies would generate other sorts of problems. (High EV but low AC/HP enemies are trivialized by EV-ignoring attacks, and making those sort of attacks a de facto requirement by adding lots of high EV enemies would not improve the game but simply add a lame hoop everyone has to jump through.)

If there is a problem, here, it is that +acc is a bit weak. So why don't we just buff +acc, rather than force melee dudes to weapon swap more than they already have to? I don't think that adds anything interesting to the game whatsoever.