Hex chance improvement

[VeryAngryFelid]

I got this:

  Code:

Aim: an orc warrior, wielding a scimitar and wearing a glowing plate armour (chance to defeat MR: 62%)
The orc warrior resists with almost no effort.
The orc misses you. The orc warrior closely misses you.
Casting: Ensorcelled Hibernation
Confirm with . or Enter, or press ? or * to list all spells.
Aiming: Ensorcelled Hibernation
Press: ? - help, Shift-Dir - straight line, f/p - orc warrior
Aim: an orc warrior, wielding a scimitar and wearing a glowing plate armour (chance to defeat MR: 62%)
The orc warrior resists with almost no effort.

Can we please have another message like "It looks like orc warrior is using MR+ item" so I can add "force_more_message" for it?
I think I am not expected to read all those "resists with almost no effort" if I see success chance. Or am I?

[archaeo]

I feel like this would actually be cool to extend to all equipment-based resistances. "A flash of protective magic surrounds the foo! The foo resists with almost no effort." "The foo's bar seems to absorb the heat/cold/negative energy/enchantment." Something like that wouldn't be out of place, I should think.

[Elitist]

I feel like this would actually be cool to extend to all equipment-based resistances. "A flash of protective magic surrounds the foo! The foo resists with almost no effort." "The foo's bar seems to absorb the heat/cold/negative energy/enchantment." Something like that wouldn't be out of place, I should think.

I really enjoy things like that, being able to decipher attributes from system messages. This would be very cool.

[dpeg]

I feel like this would actually be cool to extend to all equipment-based resistances. "A flash of protective magic surrounds the foo! The foo resists with almost no effort." "The foo's bar seems to absorb the heat/cold/negative energy/enchantment." Something like that wouldn't be out of place, I should think.

I can't think of an immediate counterpoint, so this seems fine to me.

Cannot make promises, but I'd support and advertise a patch/PR.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

what about auto-identifying worn resistances on sight?

edit: i mean, is there a reason we want to make players "probe" the monster with a resistance-checking attack, before disclosing the ego?

[goodcoolguy]

Yeah, monster equipment brands and items should just be identified and announced to the player. (Or even better, all items should be identified and announced to the player..)

[VeryAngryFelid]

MR ego can be calculated by reading the message and knowing spell power. I think curses won't make much sense if all egos are announced. Who's going to try that glowing robe if you know it has no ego? What next? Announcing ego of rings on the floor?

[Shard1697]

Curses already don't make sense.

[dpeg]

what about auto-identifying worn resistances on sight?

I thought a bit about this, and I prefer not to do so. I have two reasons for this:

1) Gameplay: I believe it will lead to more interesting situations when your attack gets resisted once. For example, think of the minotaur in a labyrinth: it makes a huge difference if you know in advance that your staple Fire Bolt will be resisted, or not. In my opinion, it is better ("more fun") if this is not announced, and you have to adapt after the fact.
edit: This assumes that the chance shown for Hexes actually neglects MR items. Otherwise players could and would probe for free, and that's definitely not intended -- spending a turn is

2) Interface: Suppose you suddenly stumble onto a big group of monsters, say be teleport or going down to Orc etc. I'd find it more annoying to get informed about "orc X has rF, orc Y has rC, and the orc warrior has rN", only to painstakingly figure out the three offending "o" letters among a sea of like letters. By contrast, if I fire some bolt onto orcs, and one resists, then the relevant subset is smaller.

I realise that we had a similar situation with monster weapon egos. Then again, there's a difference between dying to a non-announced ego (or, perhaps actually feared more, banished) and your own attack fizzling due to a resistance.

edit: i mean, is there a reason we want to make players "probe" the monster with a resistance-checking attack, before disclosing the ego?

Well, I think I gave two reasons.

[goodcoolguy]

Perhaps a facility more advanced than manually x-ing every monster in the pack is in order. For example, perhaps a quick search feature. The problem you point to already exists for monsters with dangerous branded weapons, as you note.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

"orc X has rF, orc Y has rC, and the orc warrior has rN", only to painstakingly figure out the three offending "o" letters among a sea of like letters.

In my experience, non-unique monsters wearing resistances are so rare that this practically would not happen outside of stuff like Elf 3 and volcanos, and in most cases you wouldn't care because you're not using that element. You can figure out the resists of monsters that wear dragon armor, and I don't think that's bad.

also, it's not just 1 turn, you can miss several times with elemental attacks. And what about things like venom and vamp brands that may or may not trigger with or without the resistance. I don't think the "resist once" situation is unambiguously more interesting, especially when the player remembers re:possible resists, and the "oshit" moment is as good when delivered on sight IMO. The artefact-wearing minotaur can have any number of properties, imagine if it has rN+ rF- MR--, then you swap to a fire weapon and/or hex it, when you would've tried to plow through it with your enchanted vamp weapon if you didn't know that.

[VeryAngryFelid]

also, it's not just 1 turn, you can miss several times with elemental attacks. And what about things like venom and vamp brands that may or may not trigger with or without the resistance. I don't think the "resist once" situation is unambiguously more interesting, especially when the player remembers re:possible resists, and the "oshit" moment is as good when delivered on sight IMO.

When monsters have an item with ego, you can try different types of attacks, this is interesting IMHO. Venom still applies to monsters with rPois and I think vampiric brand can survive the lack of buff.

[Airwolf]

Yeah, this mostly affects hexes through MR and vamp/pain through rN. Everything else I can think of is not completely blocked by one pip of resistance. (Not that hexes are, but the result of hexes is binary.). E.g. your Bolt of Fire will still kill that orc warrior regardless of his armour but it may take 1 more cast. Maybe some randarts with rF+++ matter more, but fire still causes some damage. (Doesn't rN+++ block things like Bolt of Draining completely?)

[Rast]

I feel like this would actually be cool to extend to all equipment-based resistances. "A flash of protective magic surrounds the foo! The foo resists with almost no effort." "The foo's bar seems to absorb the heat/cold/negative energy/enchantment." Something like that wouldn't be out of place, I should think.

...and then, for that monster going forward, the correct chance to hex would be displayed.