Announcing EV/AC gains

[Sprucery]

When you train Dodging, the relevant result is not when your Dodging skill reaches some level but rather when you gain a point of EV. Almost likewise for Armour skill and AC, except that Armour skill has other effects too. If you're going to train something else next, you often want to make the switch right after you gained a point.

So would it be possible to let the player know when they gained a point of EV from Dodging / AC from Armour? Of course you see your EV and AC on the screen, but at least I'm not always sure whether I just got more EV or not. AC is easier, because it's quite simple to calculate when you get more AC, if you're unsure.

A simple message like "You gained a point of EV" or "Your EV increased" would do, if it's technically straightforward to implement?

[Moose]

better than that, you should be able (possible from a submenu of the skills menu) see all of the AC/EV splitpoints for your character relative to your Dodging/Armor future values given your currently worn equipment. That would be super-useful. I'd know that if I just trained another .1 of Armor, I'd get 1 more point of AC, and similarly it would be nice to know that it's gunna take 5 more points of dodging to see that next increase in EV.

[ventricule]

Naive question: wouldn't it be possible to smooth the values of AC/EV for all practical calculations (say to the first decimal, like skills), so that these threshold effects become irrelevant?

[PleasingFungus]

Naive question: wouldn't it be possible to smooth the values of AC/EV for all practical calculations (say to the first decimal, like skills), so that these threshold effects become irrelevant?

It seems like it'd be unfortunate for "15 EV" and "15 EV" to have different gameplay effects, depending on a hidden decimal.

[ydeve]

Would it be hard to display that decimal?

[duvessa]

Naive question: wouldn't it be possible to smooth the values of AC/EV for all practical calculations (say to the first decimal, like skills), so that these threshold effects become irrelevant?

It seems like it'd be unfortunate for "15 EV" and "15 EV" to have different gameplay effects, depending on a hidden decimal.

"15.1 Staves" and "15.1 Staves" have different gameplay effects, depending on a hidden decimal.

[Tressol]

Sadly, a change to Dex/Encumberance could throw everything for a loop all over again, so I'm not sure it would end up being all that helpful in the long run... But announcing the new EV point seems like it would be easy to code, and it probably would actually be pretty helpful.

[Arrhythmia]

Naive question: wouldn't it be possible to smooth the values of AC/EV for all practical calculations (say to the first decimal, like skills), so that these threshold effects become irrelevant?

It seems like it'd be unfortunate for "15 EV" and "15 EV" to have different gameplay effects, depending on a hidden decimal.

"15.1 Staves" and "15.1 Staves" have different gameplay effects, depending on a hidden decimal.

Yeah, but this difference is 10X worse.

[duvessa]

Since when is a 1 EV difference actually noticeable in-game? Other than the one between 0 and 1 EV, I suppose.

[Arrhythmia]

Since when is a 1 EV difference actually noticeable in-game? Other than the one between 0 and 1 EV, I suppose.

Since when is a 0.1 staves difference actually noticeable in-game?

[duvessa]

Since when is a 1 EV difference actually noticeable in-game? Other than the one between 0 and 1 EV, I suppose.

Since when is a 0.1 staves difference actually noticeable in-game?

Yeah, that's my entire point...if the 15.1 staves difference doesn't matter, why does the 15 EV difference matter? Other examples: spell success, MR.

[Arrhythmia]

It doesn't but it's a bad precedent to follow.

e: please use ideas to communicate in the future again instead of bullshit cryptic minmayisms

[HardboiledGargoyle]

Naive question: wouldn't it be possible to smooth the values of AC/EV for all practical calculations (say to the first decimal, like skills), so that these threshold effects become irrelevant?

It seems like it'd be unfortunate for "15 EV" and "15 EV" to have different gameplay effects, depending on a hidden decimal.

Would it be hard to display that decimal?

Exactly, display that decimal so you can see you have 19.6 AC and 15.1 EV.

Strength, intelligence, and dexterity are primary stats. They only get modified discreetly. There is never any rounding used to determine your primary stats.

Your derived defensive stats are different. They are a function of armor properties, stats, size, skilling, etc. So there is heavy rounding involved in determining them. The AC/EV granularity is coarse enough for people like Sprucery and Moose to get worked up over skilling breakpoints. I don't see people worrying over fighting skill breakpoints and how much more fighting you need to get 1 more max HP, because granularity of max HP gains from fighting is finer. It's also hard to guess which armor is better when swapping between them to check out the AC/EV difference. Maybe with one armor you'll get an extra AC by training 0.1 more armor skill, and with another you'll get an extra AC by training 5 more armor skill. Figuring out EV breakpoints is even more complicated (calculating next AC breakpoint is easy) because EV uses not just 1 skill the way AC does (armor), but 2 skills (armor and dodging) plus 2 stats (strength and dexterity).

By smoothing the effective values of AC/EV and displaying them with one decimal place, you will:

• make it plainly obvious that base AC is different from +X enchantments of AC (you apply an enchant scroll to your armor at 11 skill and your AC goes up by only 1, not 1.5)

• make it easier to see the effect of stats and skills because it won't be muddied by rounding (you put on ring of +5 STR and your EV increases by 2.3)

• make un-silly the silliness of auxiliary slot base AC adding to total armor base AC (boots might say: +0 armor of this type will give you 1.4 AC)

• profit (not literally!)

Edit: and of course you will make announcing EV/AC gains unnecessary.

[duvessa]

I don't see people worrying over fighting skill breakpoints and how much more fighting you need to get 1 more max HP

I do this (also fighting skill gives max HP in intervals of 2 instead of 1 sometimes)

[byrel]

I don't know how easy this suggestion is to implement, but it would feel good. I don't enjoy either pulling up an AC calculator or just watching my AC like a hawk to know when I hit breakpoints. In fact, if I wasn't spoiled I'd assume that it was a continuous function that was simply rounded to the nearest integer.

e: please use ideas to communicate in the future again instead of bullshit cryptic minmayisms

Unless there were massive edits, I don't really see any bullshit or crypticness... And I don't think calling what someone says 'bullshit' is helpful.

[duvessa]

Unless there were massive edits

the only massive edit was to Arrhythmia's pride

[WingedEspeon]

Finding AC breakpoints isn't so bad as you take 22/(Base AC) to determine how often you gain a point of AC. Watching your skills like a hawk to find out when you hit the breakpoints is a pain though. EV gains are also a lot more complicated.

[byrel]

Purely theoretically, a game that expects me to calculate

  Code:

(trunc(skill/(22/n))+1)*22/n

should either be advertised as an educational game, or is doing something wrong.

Not all wrong things are high priorities to fix of course. But having to calculate a nasty formula to optimize skilling, with non-spoiled errors being the equivalent of 1-2 dungeon levels of XP isn't really great.