make all partially resistible damage 50% resistible

[HardboiledGargoyle]

Magma, icicle, etc. have different proportions of elemental and physical damage.
There's good reason to make it 50/50: you could actually remember what the composition is, and tell the player, like is done with "up to half again as much" brands.
And 50% is good enough. I doubt anyone would even notice the difference by themselves.
(Except Poison Arrow - I guess it would need a nerf since it's not the best spell to use against rPois- monsters, who tend to be evasive.)
Partially resistible = less affected by resistance. Just look at the chart below. It clearly shows that the difference between 40% or 60% elemental versus 50% elemental is really small, especially against the susceptible. False complexity!

  Code:

            |                HOW MUCH DAMAGE IS TAKEN
            +-----------------------------------------------------
% elemental |                                     very
            | susceptible     -    resistant    resistant   immune
===================================================================
    0             100%      100%      100%        100%       100%
    40            120%      100%      80%         68%        60%
    50            125%      100%      75%         60%        50%
    60            130%      100%      70%         52%        40%
    100           150%      100%      50%         20%        0%

[Hurkyl]

I'm not sure doing 25% more damage counts as "really small". (60% vs 50% resistible vs immune monsters)

[duvessa]

I'm not sure doing 25% more damage counts as "really small". (60% vs 50% resistible vs immune monsters)

125% of bad damage is still bad

[Sar]

If we're talking Throw Icicle, there's often no great alternative. If we're talking point-blank Glaciate, it's not really "bad" at all...

[4Hooves2Appendages]

For the sake of simplicity, consistency and ease of understanding this is great. It may be necessary to adjust the damage or hit chance of some spells as a result. Probably icicle buffed, and maybe PA weakened slightly? Although PA is already a level 6 dual school spell that suffers from poison's general resistance-problem, so maybe it's fine.

[Sar]

For the sake of simplicity, consistency and ease of understanding merging all elemental schools into one would be great, preserving only spells deemed interesting. For the sake of the game though, I don't think it would. But who am I to argue?

[4Hooves2Appendages]

I guess the problem I have with the current arrangement is that the numbers are hidden and vary quite a lot between spells. Hidden numbers are less problematic the fewer they are and the more consistently they are applied in my view.

[Sar]

It's bad documentation. I've just checked and Glaciate description doesn't even mention its partially irresistible damage. Wouldn't even need numbers, just something like "A big part of the damage can't be resisted" vs. "Some of the damage can't be resisted", maybe conveyed in a better manner by a native speaker.

[4Hooves2Appendages]

As a compromise, perhaps there could be a small number of different levels damage only resistable by AC, like 33%, 50% and 67% (or some other appropriate set). Then those should be communicated clearly on every affected spells ('some', 'half', 'most' or something similar).

[Sar]

I like that idea.

[dpeg]

Me too.

[neil]

As a compromise, perhaps there could be a small number of different levels damage only resistable by AC, like 33%, 50% and 67% (or some other appropriate set). Then those should be communicated clearly on every affected spells ('some', 'half', 'most' or something similar).

What if we used 40%, 55%, and 70% ?

[duvessa]

Where are 40% and 70% actually needed?

[HardboiledGargoyle]

I swear I'd never be able to tell whether icicle is >50% or <50% irresistible, from just playing.

It's bad documentation. I've just checked and Glaciate description doesn't even mention its partially irresistible damage. Wouldn't even need numbers, just something like "A big part of the damage can't be resisted" vs. "Some of the damage can't be resisted", maybe conveyed in a better manner by a native speaker.

"Half the damage is physical, and half the damage is cold."? The vulnerable take less damage from the partially irresistible, a fact your suggestions obscure.

Another idea is to make icicle and glaciate work like melee with a weapon of freezing.
With the way the freezing ego currently works (which I'm not too happy with), it would be like this:
icicle hits rat (physically) for 60 damage!!
you freeze the rat (for 0-30 damage, average 15)!

[Sar]

Hooray, MarvinPA fixed the descriptions: http://s-z.org/neil/git/?p=crawl.git;a=commitdiff;h=133f65f22dc942fdee9835540e7169f6b15ea264;hp=6b21fdfe508587ee55e243cbf9765981453b6526

[4Hooves2Appendages]

As a compromise, perhaps there could be a small number of different levels damage only resistable by AC, like 33%, 50% and 67% (or some other appropriate set). Then those should be communicated clearly on every affected spells ('some', 'half', 'most' or something similar).

What if we used 40%, 55%, and 70% ?

To communicate 40% and 55% accurately without saying the actual numbers is difficult. In a lot of cases it will intuitively look like 50%. It'll be hard for unspoiled players to actually notice that the difference between the two. In my view, being unable to notice the difference is a good argument for not having the difference in the first place.

Two levels would also be fine, like 50% and 75% ('half', 'most') That can be communicated and is probably noticeable.

[adozu]

It'll be hard for unspoiled players to actually notice that the difference between the two. In my view, being unable to notice the difference is a good argument for not having the difference in the first place.

i read that as: some players are not very observant of damage so might as well go ahead and make damage less variable. 55% is like, 40% more of 40%. if you pay attention you *will* notice.

[4Hooves2Appendages]

I honestly believe it is nearly impossible to figure out the difference between 55% and 40%. There are too many obscuring factors. Between enemy HP variation, (huge) player damage variation and messages not giving detailed feedback on the magnitude of spell damage, it's just really difficult.

[Hurkyl]

I think noticing something is different is quite likely. What is unlikely is pinning the difference down to something more specific than "the game in harder/easier than I remember".