Differentiate swords and maces by damage distribution

[tasonir]

Proposal: Differentiate swords and maces by making maces deal consistent damage, while swords keep crawl's current, widely distributed damage formula.

Explanation: So I was originally inspired by torchlight 2, which is a few years old at this point but something I've only started playing recently. In that game, almost all melee weapons have a wide damage range, roughly 1X to 2X, except for axes. Axes always hit for the same value (which I would assume is 1.5X, although I haven't checked). Sample comparison (Note the axe in this image is a powerful legendary being compared to a 'regularish' sort of sword, so the axe has a lot more power):



Obviously axes in crawl already have cleaving and so I'd rather this consistent damage property be applied to maces instead. I would also like to see the "strong" version of this applied, in that the base damage plus all skill bonuses (fighting skill, mace skill) all return their average value. Additional damage sources (consistent brands like flaming, vorpal; slaying bonuses) could either still roll or also return the average value. Brands that trigger randomly (electric, distortion) still trigger randomly; the damage could be averaged or left alone. Monsters still roll their armor value randomly. Whatever is chosen, monsters with maces should behave the same way - they deal their average damage, minus your random armor roll, if they get past your SH/EV.

To hit chance remains normal - you can still miss/hit exactly as you do now, it is only if you hit that you'll see your average damage applied.

A line in the description for all maces & flails should mention that maces are a more reliable source of damage than most weapons, wording TBD.

There is some possibility this could negatively affect some edge cases: ie, demon whips vs hell sentinels (25 ac). This would probably be a horrible change to apply to short blades, but I'm not suggesting that. I think that demon whips have enough average damage to punch through even high ac targets, although they're obviously worse against them than lighter armored targets. An end game player with a demon whip doing 11 damage is multiplied by roughly 3 (assuming 20+ fighting and 12 maces), so they'd be hitting for roughly 15 damage or so, and about 20 after strength is factored in (assuming around 15 strength, more strength will raise this). That puts the average damage at around 8.5 after the sentinel's average 12.5 armor roll. This is pretty low, but factoring in slaying and brand, and I think it'll be enough to remain effective, or at least as effective as demon whips vs high AC targets are currently (not ideal, but workable). Hopefully your demon whip isn't +0. Numbers are all ballparked, but I don't think I'm terribly off by much. If someone wants to work out exact numbers, please do.

Rationale: I'm not sure what I can say to explain the -why- of this change; there's already a group of players who will immediately want this and there's those who probably won't be convinced by anything I write. Crawl combat is very spiky, and some way to reduce the variance would be very welcome. This wouldn't reduce all of the variance, as there's still misses and armor rolls, and optionally the slaying/brand rolls would remain. But you'd get a relatively consistent amount of damage each hit and would be better able to estimate when things will die, helping planning information. I don't think it would be overpowered to give this kind of information to players, but it's possibly a buff.

Flavorwise: I believe consistent reliable damage makes more sense for crushing weapons than for bladed weapons, which are more easily deflected off armor or could pierce a vital organ and kill quickly. Maces tend to be "repeat several times until it finally cracks" and each hit contributes to the final effect.

[dpeg]

I think this could be interesting to test. (I might be missing some obvious counterpoint, but nothing springs to my mind.)

[WalkerBoh]

Even just tightening the range would be interesting. I think you've identified a plausible way for differentiating weapons a bit.

[Siegurt]

Well while I think there isn't going to be any harmful effect of doing this, (it works fine for spell damage) I think in practice you aren't going to notice much, if any, difference.

Mace users and sword users are still going to feel pretty much the same in combat, and it is really only the spoiled that will really know or care. That being said, I really don't see any reason *not* to do it if there is interest.

[WingedEspeon]

This sounds interesting, but it might make more sense flavor wise to apply it to long blades instead.

[Ceann]

You could just leave the damage the same, but give maces some form of AC penetration or perhaps ignore some SH and find something fitting for swords maybe like parry or something. This would prevent having to raise mace damage while giving them a bonus that would be in-line with what maces are actually suppose to be used for "smashing armor" but against evasive enemies it wouldn't really be a bonus. You could then make the damage types matter then you wouldn't have to worry about what school the actual weapons are and what damage types a weapon school has access too can give it additional pro's and con's. Such as Long Blades doesn't have bludgeoning they could make get a piercing weapon that has some bonus to hit which makes them better for EV.

Guess the short version would be to have a set of bonuses to apply to weapons based on what their damage type is you can then apply them to the weapons in each school which would create some more strategic choices.

[kuniqs]

Why not just give maces more damage?

[duvessa]

How would this actually make tactics different with swords vs. maces? You're not guaranteeing that a monster will be dead in X attacks by picking maces, since you could always just miss, not to mention AC and monster hp randomization.

[lethediver]

You could just leave the damage the same, but give maces some form of AC penetration or perhaps ignore some SH and find something fitting for swords maybe like parry or something. This would prevent having to raise mace damage while giving them a bonus that would be in-line with what maces are actually suppose to be used for "smashing armor" but against evasive enemies it wouldn't really be a bonus. You could then make the damage types matter then you wouldn't have to worry about what school the actual weapons are and what damage types a weapon school has access too can give it additional pro's and con's. Such as Long Blades doesn't have bludgeoning they could make get a piercing weapon that has some bonus to hit which makes them better for EV.

Guess the short version would be to have a set of bonuses to apply to weapons based on what their damage type is you can then apply them to the weapons in each school which would create some more strategic choices.

It appears maces already do have some property that lets them penetrate armor. At least, that's what I get out of reading this page on the wiki:

http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Melee_weapon

Some maces have "piercing (bludgeoning)" damage while others have "crushing".

[duvessa]

You could just leave the damage the same, but give maces some form of AC penetration or perhaps ignore some SH and find something fitting for swords maybe like parry or something. This would prevent having to raise mace damage while giving them a bonus that would be in-line with what maces are actually suppose to be used for "smashing armor" but against evasive enemies it wouldn't really be a bonus. You could then make the damage types matter then you wouldn't have to worry about what school the actual weapons are and what damage types a weapon school has access too can give it additional pro's and con's. Such as Long Blades doesn't have bludgeoning they could make get a piercing weapon that has some bonus to hit which makes them better for EV.

Guess the short version would be to have a set of bonuses to apply to weapons based on what their damage type is you can then apply them to the weapons in each school which would create some more strategic choices.

It appears maces already do have some property that lets them penetrate armor. At least, that's what I get out of reading this page on the wiki:

http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Melee_weapon

Some maces have "piercing (bludgeoning)" damage while others have "crushing".

That only affects the messages you get for high-damage hits.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

You could just leave the damage the same, but give maces some form of AC penetration

This would work better as a brand that ignores a fraction of enemy AC and is exclusive to M&F and artefacts, like how speed is exclusive to artefacts and a small number of base types.

[Quazifuji]

AC penetration has come up as a possible feature for maces in the past, but the counter argument I've seen every time is that in practice, the vast majority of the time it would be indistinguishable from them just having better damage.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

in practice, the vast majority of the time it would be indistinguishable from them just having better damage.

but that's true of most brands

[ololoev]

How would this actually make tactics different with swords vs. maces? You're not guaranteeing that a monster will be dead in X attacks by picking maces, since you could always just miss, not to mention AC and monster hp randomization.

You can't guarantee it, but the spread for a particular monster being dead after several hits will be less dramatic than it is now.

[byrel]

I'm not sure this would be significant, but I'm not sure it wouldn't be. I'd definitely be interested in the experiment.

[asdu]

As duvessa said, I think this change would have minimal to no effect on (rational) decision making. However, since the implementation would be completely opaque, I'm sure the damage spread of maces will quickly join the top tier of misunderstood/overrated/divisive mechanics alongside such staples of Crawl forums as necromutation and GDR. Maybe it'll later be removed when it's realized that the confusion it creates is greater than its actual in-game significance and this will cause a couple dozen players to quit in protest.
That being said, I would be curious to see what Crawl feels like with less variance in damage.

[Jeremiah]

I've always thought that a possible way to distinguish maces (and make them better against high AC targets) would be to give them higher base damage but special-case them so minimum delay was higher than 0.7 (similar to the way crossbows are now.)

[tasonir]

So while it's true that this won't prevent a fight from theoretically going on forever (you can always miss), I think it'll have a noticeable impact on combat. Ie, an average great sword fighter vs a high hp target in the mid game will see a distribution of 2-8 attacks to kill the target, and an average great mace fighter will have the same fight take around 4-6 hits. This isn't earth shattering or anything, but I think it's interesting enough. If a player is aware of this you might be more inclined to stay in fights knowing you have a higher chance of killing the monster over the next 2 hits, rather than maybe taking 4. On the other hand, a player may be more willing to risk one more hit with a sword if they think they might get a lucky roll.

Neither of those cases would be terribly optimal, because if there's any risk you should be escaping it, but players are often far from optimal...

[WingedEspeon]

I feel like this would make M&F the preferred weapon type when streaking, especially for strong characters like HO/Mi Fi/Gl. The decreased variance would probably be good when streaking.

Not that M&F aren't already generally considered slightly better due to availability.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

Decreased damage variance is noticeable when casting, like when your spell of choice seems to always eat more than half a certain monster's health bar when it hits, but rarely one-shots it. Just saying, you don't have to make new experiments to see what it's like.

[kuniqs]

Make the vorpal brand ignore some % of AC

[Speleothing]

I feel like this would make M&F the preferred weapon type when streaking, especially for strong characters like HO/Mi Fi/Gl. The decreased variance would probably be good when streaking.

Not that M&F aren't already generally considered slightly better due to availability.

M&F are a) more available, and b) hydra safe. Both of which are very important when choosing a weapon type. Unless your race has a much stronger aptitude for Long Blades, the only reason to invest in it over M&F would be an exceptionally good item find.

[kuniqs]

2d10 and 1d20 will do the same amount of average damage you know

[Sprucery]

Assuming 1d20 = (1 to 20), average damage = 10.5.
Whereas 2d10 = 2*1d10 = 2*(1 to 10), average damage = 2*5.5 = 11.

[beakerthefrog]

Assuming 1d20 = (1 to 20), average damage = 10.5.
Whereas 2d10 = 2*1d10 = 2*(1 to 10), average damage = 2*5.5 = 11.

1d20 means that anywhere from a 1 to a 20 can be rolled, thus there are 20 possible outcomes, not 19. It isn't "all numbers between 1-20" or as your math suggests: ("#'s > 1 - 20 || 1 - #'s < 20)

[beakerthefrog]

OP's overall premise makes sense. The rest of the weapons in the game have some factor that distinguish them (short swords have stabbing, axes have cleave, spears have reach). It makes sense to choose one (or neither) of the two remaining melee weapon types as a base/control group, and then give the other (or both) a distinguishing characteristic outside of stat variations.

Swords are the more traditional choice, but I think using maces as the control group, or "normal" weapon has merit as well. One option is to leave maces unchanged (they are distinguished by not doing slashing damage) and change long swords so that their damage is significantly higher, but AC is applied twice instead of once, much like sandblast. This is accurate flavor-wise (maces, axes, and short blades are more effective against armored targets than long blades in the real world, and armor was primarily constructed to reduce the effectiveness of swords and to a lesser extent - arrows). It also adds more flexibility to the game. It creates a class of weapon that provides early game benefits (valuable to casters), but heavily drops off later in the midgame. If desired, greatswords could be exempted from this double AC penalty for balance purposes.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

Assuming 1d20 = (1 to 20), average damage = 10.5.
Whereas 2d10 = 2*1d10 = 2*(1 to 10), average damage = 2*5.5 = 11.

1d20 means that anywhere from a 1 to a 20 can be rolled, thus there are 20 possible outcomes, not 19. It isn't "all numbers between 1-20" or as your math suggests: ("#'s > 1 - 20 || 1 - #'s < 20)

sorry I can't follow your thinking but Sprucery is correct

(edit: assuming we're talking about what XdY normally means, not however Crawl implements rolls)

the average damage of 1d1 is 1
the average damage of 1d2 is 1.5
the average damage of 1d3 is 2
the average damage of 1d4 is 2.5
the average damage of 1d5 is 3
the average damage of 1d6 is 3.5
the average damage of 1d7 is 4
the average damage of 1d8 is 4.5
the average damage of 1d9 is 5
the average damage of 1d10 is 5.5
the average damage of 2d10 is twice of 1d10, so 11
the average damage of 1d20 is 10.5

[Siegurt]

That is true of traditional dice rolling, however the default condition of randomized rolls in crawl includes a 0.

So a crawl d20 is acutally 0-20 calling it a d20 is really technically a misnomer, it doesn't mimic a 20 sided die numbered 1 to 20.

The average of a crawl d20 is 10, not 10.5, and 2d10 for crawl is also an average of 10.

[neil]

That is true of traditional dice rolling, however the default condition of randomized rolls in crawl includes a 0.

So a crawl d20 is acutally 0-20 calling it a d20 is really technically a misnomer, it doesn't mimic a 20 sided die numbered 1 to 20.

The average of a crawl d20 is 10, not 10.5, and 2d10 for crawl is also an average of 10.

In Crawl, "d20" means the same thing that it means in D&D: a integer chosen uniformly from [1, 20]. Dice + sides like that (implemented in the function roll_dice) are used for spell damage; for example, player Throw Flame does 2d(4 + power/10) damage, which means a minimum of 2 (pre-AC of course).

Player melee and ranged attacks, however, use random2(potential_damage + 1), which does give an integer [0, 21) = [0, 20] as you suggest. But calling that "1d20" is wrong: I'd write "1d21 - 1".

[Siegurt]

That is true of traditional dice rolling, however the default condition of randomized rolls in crawl includes a 0.

So a crawl d20 is acutally 0-20 calling it a d20 is really technically a misnomer, it doesn't mimic a 20 sided die numbered 1 to 20.

The average of a crawl d20 is 10, not 10.5, and 2d10 for crawl is also an average of 10.

In Crawl, "d20" means the same thing that it means in D&D: a integer chosen uniformly from [1, 20]. Dice + sides like that (implemented in the function roll_dice) are used for spell damage; for example, player Throw Flame does 2d(4 + power/10) damage, which means a minimum of 2 (pre-AC of course).

Player melee and ranged attacks, however, use random2(potential_damage + 1), which does give an integer [0, 21) = [0, 20] as you suggest. But calling that "1d20" is wrong: I'd write "1d21 - 1".

Yes, sorry, that was an oversimplification, since post this was in reference to melee damage, I was trying to correct the misperception that melee damage is "dX" at all. Neil's post is definitely more accurate and comprehensive.

[TeshiAlair]

I don't recall, is there any brand variance between LB and M&F? I know that speed is unique to SB and Staves, but perhaps that is a simpler route to differentiation.