Spell hunger scale

[duvessa]

Casting a spell lowers your nutrition by an amount varying with the spell's level: (1) 50, (2) 95, (3) 160, (4) 250, (5) 350, (6) 550, (7) 700, (8) 860, (9) 1000.

Here's a graph of current spell hunger:

Here's one of the change in spell hunger from the previous level:


The difference between level 5 and 6 spells is huge for no reason (this is noticeable in gameplay if you look at your spell hunger at all), it changes direction a bunch of times, and generally has no discernible pattern. I admit it's rare for spell hunger to have a meaningful effect, but I still think it should use a smoother scale. For example, the best quadratic fit results in (1) 35, (2) 92, (3) 172, (4) 269, (5) 384, (6) 518, (7) 670, (8) 842, (9) 1031.

[Psiweapon]

beautiful

[PleasingFungus]

Casting a spell lowers your nutrition by an amount varying with the spell's level: (1) 50, (2) 95, (3) 160, (4) 250, (5) 350, (6) 550, (7) 700, (8) 860, (9) 1000.

Here's a graph of current spell hunger:

Here's one of the change in spell hunger from the previous level:


The difference between level 5 and 6 spells is huge for no reason (this is noticeable in gameplay if you look at your spell hunger at all), it changes direction a bunch of times, and generally has no discernible pattern. I admit it's rare for spell hunger to have a meaningful effect, but I still think it should use a smoother scale. For example, the best quadratic fit results in (1) 35, (2) 92, (3) 172, (4) 269, (5) 384, (6) 518, (7) 670, (8) 842, (9) 1031.

What are the coefficients on your fit? I'd rather have a formula than a lookup table, I think.

[johlstei]

y = 9x^2 + 31x - 6

Teaching yourself simple linear regression is worthwhile if you're feeling it. I always wondered why haste seemed to be so much more hungering than level 5 spells, now I know.

[SaidTheAlligatorKingToHisSon]

The difference between level 5 and 6 spells is huge for no reason.

One justification for the large increase would be that some of the best conjuration spells (which have to be cast multiple times and hence may have hunger issues) are level 6, and greatly increase your character's destructive power. While having a quadratic (or linear) increase in spell hunger is ascetically appealing and is arguably easier for a player to follow, sometimes a discontinuity makes sense. Of course if the game ever does away with hunger in all forms (will it?) then the point will be moot.

[Arrhythmia]

y = 9x^2 + 31x - 6

I demand we use a quadratic with integer, or at least rational, roots; I will not compromise.

[duvessa]

elliptic proposed fudging the numbers to ease memorization, something like: 50, 100, 150, 250, 400, 550, 700, 850, 1000

[njvack]

If there were ever numbers in crawl I needed to memorize, these are the ones.

[and into]

I don't know for sure one way or the other, but elliptic may have been more concerned about ease of remembering/re-typing these numbers for people working on the code, rather than players looking it up on learndb. It isn't a huge deal either way, but since it isn't a huge deal, why not go with nice, round numbers?

[njvack]

I know, it just sounded funny to me. I like pretty numbers too.

[PleasingFungus]

I don't know for sure one way or the other, but elliptic may have been more concerned about ease of remembering/re-typing these numbers for people working on the code, rather than players looking it up on learndb. It isn't a huge deal either way, but since it isn't a huge deal, why not go with nice, round numbers?

I have nothing against arbitrary, round hunger numbers, but if anyone is retyping these numbers in the code, something has gone terribly wrong.

(and this is rapidly approaching the point of "hunger number bikeshedding", assuming it didn't start there.)

[Arrhythmia]

I don't know for sure one way or the other, but elliptic may have been more concerned about ease of remembering/re-typing these numbers for people working on the code, rather than players looking it up on learndb. It isn't a huge deal either way, but since it isn't a huge deal, why not go with nice, round numbers?

I have nothing against arbitrary, round hunger numbers, but if anyone is retyping these numbers in the code, something has gone terribly wrong.

So status quo for crawl then?

[khalil]

So status quo for crawl then?

I think I just died a little inside.

[PleasingFungus]

So status quo for crawl then?

In complete fairness, that quote is from a 15-year-old commit.

Crawl's code is still bad, but it's not quite that bad anymore.

Mostly.

[PleasingFungus]

elliptic proposed fudging the numbers to ease memorization, something like: 50, 100, 150, 250, 400, 550, 700, 850, 1000

Pushed these.

Did some searching through the git in the process; turns out that the old hunger numbers date back to pre-Stone-Soup.

Also turns out that crawl did (and does) support hunger calculations for spells that are level 10 or higher. Makes me wonder if that is/was ever used.

[nicolae]

Also turns out that crawl did (and does) support hunger calculations for spells that are level 10 or higher. Makes me wonder if that is/was ever used.

Obviously, we need to test this out with a level 10 spell.