The Tavern

lordfrikk wrote:I'd say upload the patch and see what they think about it.

andreas wrote:

lordfrikk wrote:I'd say upload the patch and see what they think about it.

''No numbers in descriptions please.''

...just a guess.

genericpseudonym wrote:Actually it would be 38% and 46%, because for some reason the code's internal SH variable is 2x the SH value displayed to the player. So it would be a 24-in-64 or a 34-in-74 chance, respectively.

Quazifuji wrote:Wasn't there a change a couple patches back that made each point of SH twice as effective in order to make enchantment levels on shields more meaningful? I assume that's why internal shield value is double what's displayed.

sanka wrote:Well, they opposed showing damage numbers, and I can't imagine more useful numbers to know than the damage you may receive.

dpeg wrote:

sanka wrote:Well, they opposed showing damage numbers, and I can't imagine more useful numbers to know than the damage you may receive.

In fact, that's one of not-so-many numbers that the game can provide without additional context. (Outgoing damage, for example, needs monster HP and some more numbers, so is a lot harder to make sensible.) But when you think about it, what would you display incoming damage: maximal value? Or also expected value?

dpeg wrote:(Outgoing damage, for example, needs monster HP and some more numbers, so is a lot harder to make sensible.)

neil wrote:I think base damage (ignoring effects like might, multiple attacks, wielding weapons). That would parallel what we show for player weapons. For monsters with weapons we could show something like "Base damage: 25; Base weapon damage: 13" for an orc knight wielding a halberd. I wouldn't want to imply that the numbers are simply added together, though, or that it can't do more damage (slaying, weapon plusses, brands).

Calculating the actual maximum damage would a pain to get right and be very liable to get out of sync with the actual damage code, unless perhaps we make all the relevant functions use and return random_vars—and even then we'd need a flag to suppress hidden information.

VeryAngryFelid wrote:Can we start with displaying max damage for monster spells? I think they don't suffer from random factors, also avoiding melee monsters is easier than monsters with spells.

ion_frigate wrote:A related issue: why do monster spells have so much looser damage distributions? A player with LCS does 10d22 damage at max power, and an ancient lich does something like 3d48. It seems like the 3dx distribution dates back to pre-DCSS Crawl, but for some reason it was tightened for players but not for monsters.

I understand that player/monster symmetry isn't a priority, but this one is really weird and spoilerish, and in fact punishes observant players who notice that spells like Iron Shot and LCS are pretty consistent in damage (e.g. they see that only the highest-AC monsters ever take no damage from them). Also weird: the fact that (player) Poison Arrow has a much looser damage distribution than other high-level conjurations.

dpeg wrote: But when you think about it, what would you display incoming damage: maximal value? Or also expected value?

ion_frigate wrote: for some reason it was tightened for players but not for monsters

HardboiledGargoyle wrote:I would display the maximal post-EV post-SH pre-AC value for both incoming and outgoing damage, and also simply damage formulas to enforce a flat distribution from min (prob 0 but not necessarily) to max damage.

HardboiledGargoyle wrote:I just meant: assuming the attack doesn't miss
because with a flat damage distribution it's just 2 numbers that are easy to communicate (and they tell you everything)
if you just display them a certain way, then you naturally insinuate the context
for example if I see "Dam: 0-11" then I tend to think "any number between 0 and 11, inclusively, each equally likely"
(to-hit and EV rolls could similarly be simplified to the point that having the game actually calculate % for you would almost seem condescending)
that's a point in favor of flat distributions, so let me bounce the question back at you: what advantage do dX+dY+dZ distributions have over flat distributions?