UC and Throwing delay randomization

[tabstorm]

Why is this in the game? If it is necessary to balance UC in some way, at least make it a constant delay. A player could swing at nothing a few times and note that their attack speed was 0.6 due to having this delay a few times in a row, only to later die to a double or triple turn from an enemy, having not checked their attack speed since then. I don't think potentially misleading players by having randomized delay really accomplishes anything good.

Edit: Apparently shields also do this with regular weapons.

[jejorda2]

I think the idea is that it removed break points.

If the delay calculated from skill level and other factors is .64, the game can either set the delay to .7, set it to .6, set it to .64, or set it to .6 60% of the time and .7 40% of the time. The first two options (fixed delays) lead to there being no benefit to, say, trainng weapon skill above 10 unless you can train it to 15. The second option (over-precise delay) takes more room to display a difference that is too small to matter. The last option (probabable delay) means skill levels (and player decisions) make a difference.

Or are you talking about the heavy armour penalty, and not just attack delay in general?

[Bloax]

He is not talking about that at all:

unarmed combat[1/3]: Fighting without a weapon. Base damage is 3 + UC skill (+2 per claws level (so +6 Tr, +2 Gh), +X for forms); delay 10 - UC/5.4; +2 to hit (+4 Tr/Gh). This delay is increased to max(10, 1d10+2dAEVP) - UC/5.4 if wearing {heavy armour}, plus the usual shield penalty, plus 1d2 - 1 if using a shield.

Which means that if you are wearing an armour with an AEVP of 4 (plate with 19 str/14 armour) then you have a 2.5% chance of getting an extra +0.8 turns delay on that.

[tabstorm]

He is not talking about that at all:

unarmed combat[1/3]: Fighting without a weapon. Base damage is 3 + UC skill (+2 per claws level (so +6 Tr, +2 Gh), +X for forms); delay 10 - UC/5.4; +2 to hit (+4 Tr/Gh). This delay is increased to max(10, 1d10+2dAEVP) - UC/5.4 if wearing {heavy armour}, plus the usual shield penalty, plus 1d2 - 1 if using a shield.

Which means that if you are wearing an armour with an AEVP of 4 (plate with 19 str/14 armour) then you have a 2.5% chance of getting an extra +0.8 turns delay on that.

Yeah the inspiration for this thread was a ghoul that found CPA, with 23 str 10 armour and 18 UC I was swinging at anywhere between 0.6 and 1.7 delay. This for instance could easily get me triple-turned unpredictably by a wolf spider with the help of energy randomization (which is another bad thing IMO but not the purpose of this thread).

[PleasingFungus]

We talked about this in -dev and agreed that the randomization element can probably be removed; unless objections arise, I expect it'll be a 0.16 change shortly after the tournament. (Primarily on the reasoning that it makes the mechanic more opaque to unspoiled players.)

[Sar]

triple-turned unpredictably by a wolf spider with the help of energy randomization

If you mean purely combat, not movement, energy randomization does not work for attacks.

[damiac]

He's talking specifically about the UC random energy costs, not the 'energy randomization' for moving.

I once again will say I don't understand why UC needs any special disadvantages in regards to armour heaviness. UC is already terribly subpar, due to the fact that it sucks early, when you can least afford to have your attack method suck, and at ridiculous levels of skill, it's slightly better than a good melee weapon, so why does it need extra disadvantages?

The shield disadvantage at least makes some sense, as with melee weapons you have to downgrade to a significantly weaker weapon to use a shield, so its reasonable that UC would also lose some damage for having a shield.

[duvessa]

I'm sure someone will point out that it's not really bad if you have claws or forms, so I'll argue from a slightly different perspective: let's imagine a version of Crawl where unarmed combat is overpowered. Would you nerf it by making it weaker in heavy armour and the same otherwise? Hopefully not.

[PleasingFungus]

Let's imagine a version of Crawl in which spellcasting is overpowered. Would you nerf it by making it weaker in heavy armour and the same otherwise? Hopefully not.

...or, perhaps, there's a valid design space for playstyles that compete with heavy armour wearing?

[duvessa]

Melee weapon classes are playstyles? Or do you think that all melee should get bigger penalties from heavy armour?

[Lasty]

Even just making the amount of delay less hard to explain/conceptualize would be a step in the right direction. Right now to give a decent sense of the impact of AEVP on UC you have to draw a truncated probability distribution graph.

[PleasingFungus]

Melee weapon classes are playstyles?

They should be, yes!

[Osgoodbad]

Comparing UC to spellcasting as a whole doesn't make much sense; a much more apt comparison would be comparing UC to an individual school. Is air magic so overpowered that air magic, and only air magic should be penalized in heavy armour, whereas none of the other schools receive that penalty? Different spell schools already differentiate themselves based on playstyles, just like weapon types pretend to do. UC is already pigeonholed into light armour so as to be compatible with transmutations. It doesn't need any more excuse to necessitate light armour.

[tasonir]

I think the specific heavy armor penalty for UC could be completely removed without really changing very much at all. 95% of unarmed users are in light/medium armor already, and if you're in something heavy you mostly just have to wait a bit longer until you can train some armor skill and then the penalty is small enough to not matter most of the time.

That said, if you want a non-random penalty system, how about something like this:

Add 1 aut for (encumbrance - armor skill)/6.

Basically I'd make it work the same way that shields and spell casting penalties work - it gets removed entirely at a certain point. I think it'd probably be better if it was something like 1 armor kill per 1.5 encumbrance, but exact numbers don't matter much. The formula is very simple, and can be tweaked and adjusted as desired. I tend to still think in the old -EV system, so this is basically 1 aut delay per 2 ev, and if you train your armor skill you can remove the penalty. You need 3 levels per EV, or 1 level per encumbrance.

This is intended to make removing the penalty fairly reasonably costed. It's still expensive if you're wearing CPA, but in most modest armors it'll be reasonable to remove entirely before too long.