Re: skill level micro-management
Posted: Friday, 22nd July 2011, 15:14
LunarHarp wrote:So these proposed changes really wouldn't decrease the time I spend in the m menu now.
No, but it would stop from making your gameplay suboptimal.
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup Forum
https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/
LunarHarp wrote:So these proposed changes really wouldn't decrease the time I spend in the m menu now.
galehar wrote:We try to show only relevant information and hide irrelevant details.
Galefury wrote:I'm also surprised "crushing your soul" is not on that list.
asdu wrote:knowing that clearing D:22 has trained your conjurations from 16 (10%) to 16 (25%) or rather to 16 (85%) can have a definite strategical significance
asdu wrote:Partial levels actually having an impact on the gameplay would probably not affect most people's tactical choices all that much, but it certainly sways it towards "more relevant" rather than less.
asdu wrote:Right now skill progress is displayed in 540 steps (27 * 20). You could argue this is too much, but cutting it down to 1/20th of that would be going too far in the opposite direction imo. If you want to stick with the number 27 for historical/flavour/whatever reasons, then at least display 1 decimal.
asdu wrote:Plus, as many have already stated in this thread, even the least min-maxing of players typically DO get a sense of satisfaction by watching a number go up (we humans are indeed pretty silly )
galehar wrote:And if you're telling me you get satisfaction from watching your skills progress to the next level, then maybe removing it will only make gaining skill levels more satisfying rather than less.
galehar wrote:LunarHarp wrote:So these proposed changes really wouldn't decrease the time I spend in the m menu now.
No, but it would stop from making your gameplay suboptimal.
tazoz wrote:galehar wrote:LunarHarp wrote:So these proposed changes really wouldn't decrease the time I spend in the m menu now.
No, but it would stop from making your gameplay suboptimal.
Optimal play will become a hundred times worse. Optimal play will be checking the spell screen after each kill until you hit excellent and then turning off the skill.
Lets say all you need is charms 9.3 to cast haste at excellent, going up to 10 would be a huge waste of skill points.
It just says you hit one of many thresholds in the game. Why not turn it off at 9.2 while it still says great? It wouldn't make much difference. Why not train till 10 and lesson the chance of a miscast a little bit.
minmay wrote:LunarHarp wrote:You are still getting spell power when you get up to 10 though. "Excellent" is such a relative description here. It just says you hit one of many thresholds in the game. Why not turn it off at 9.2 while it still says great? It wouldn't make much difference. Why not train till 10 and lesson the chance of a miscast a little bit.
Fine, optimal play will be checking the spell screen until it hits "Perfect." Or, for a more likely example, checking the spell screen until Mystic Blast/Magic Dart/[other spell] hits maximum power. Or pressing @ until your ranged weapon reaches minimum delay.
galehar wrote:What if we remove perfect from the spell success scale? And shift the power dashes so that full dashes mean almost maxxed power (like it currently does for cap 200). And something similar for ranged minimum delay. What if optimal play were just about being smart, making the good decisions, knowing the monsters and using your resources intelligently instead of being about micro-managing skill levels and pillar dancing hobgoblin?
Galefury wrote: If you are seriously suggesting you would train a skill to exactly level 13.8, because that next .1 skill level would be beyond the optimal amount you might want to reconsider the way you play Crawl. It's a stressful enough game without worrying about trivial things like that.
Galefury wrote:And I would really appreciate needing to jump through fewer hoops. And I think so would others. Having to train skills one at a time is one of those hoops.
minmay wrote:Fixing this is not as simple as hiding these things. You would have to remove them.
Bim wrote:Not only that, but people who DO want to play in an optimal fashion WILL go through hoops to do that, and this proposal just encourages that.
Bim wrote:Yeah you can say 'not many people will care that much to adjust every little bit' but then you could say 'not that many people will micromanage now'.
Bim wrote:I'm not shutting the idea down
LunarHarp wrote:Then again I said that about the no victory dancing thing and I have a hard time going back.
XuaXua wrote:Much like spells have the "z" page, it would help to have weapons carried able to be shown on an associated page that shows the same sort of power "bars" and "ratings" that we currently see for spells, but applied to speed, damage output, and targeting ability. This would serve as a large goodwill gesture towards the naysayers.
minmay wrote:Galefury wrote:So anything that reduces the time I have to put into that is good. For me, and for anyone else who plays like that. Which is why I am arguing for this proposal.
How does this proposal do that?
KoboldLord wrote:The proposal would not correct this even slightly. Even if you get incremental benefits for sublevels of a skill, each skill is not going to be equal for you at any point in the game. In the early game, getting your starting power spells castable is your goal, period.
galehar wrote:Bim wrote:I'm not shutting the idea down
you know, I didn't came here to ask for permission. Open development doesn't mean democracy. I came here to look for feedback, and I got what I was looking for. The idea has matured and will be presented to other devs.
galehar wrote:XuaXua wrote:Much like spells have the "z" page, it would help to have weapons carried able to be shown on an associated page that shows the same sort of power "bars" and "ratings" that we currently see for spells, but applied to speed, damage output, and targeting ability. This would serve as a large goodwill gesture towards the naysayers.
Yeah of course, that would be great. However, it's completely unrelated to the topic.
galehar wrote:OK, this is the last time I'm writing this. Currently, if you play in auto mode, you should go to the skill menu from time to time to check if a skill is above 80%. If that's the case, you disable other skills so it can level up sooner. Or you can play in manual mode and babysit your skills by switching them on each skill level up. Or you can ignore all that and have an overall weaker character.
With this change, you could play in auto mode and go to the skill menu only when you want to adjust your strategy, not to babysit your skills.
galehar wrote:Well, that's how you play, and the new system won't prevent you from playing like that. Maybe it won't change optimal play much, but it will make "easy" play much more efficient. Also, if min-maxing is indeed quite crucial in the early game, it is much less in mid-game and late-game.
KoboldLord wrote:There is no skill or combination of skills that is going to be more useful to you than making Throw Icicle or Mephitic Cloud castable at the earliest conceivable moment.
XuaXua wrote:people want the level up dings to know to stop training short swords at 10
galehar wrote:Actually, that's not even true. Currently, if you want to optimise your throw icicle spell success, you have to alternate between training conj and ice training each 1 level and switching to the other (assuming equal aptitude to simplify, but it's not much different if not). With my proposal, you can train both at the same time because having them both at 5.5 gives the same result as one at 5 and one at 6. So optimal early game play would be much less tedious. And don't you want some MP to cast your spells? Don't forget that partial spellcasting can provide MP and spell slots earlier. Maybe 20% spellcasting, 40% ice, 40% conj is better. Or not? Do we have an interesting question where we had a no-brainer?
KoboldLord wrote:Short blades and dodging, though? No real question that those are much less useful for a caster background than a decent combat spell.
minmay wrote:One other thing. How do you propose to handle decimal spell slots?
minmay wrote:If you hide things, people will find them.
Bim wrote:In a game based on numbers and working things out, I don't think that will be the case, people will just calculate things more and it'll add to the hassle for most serious players.
Bim wrote:Surely having smaller numbers to worry about (even if they're not displayed) would make people attend to the skill screens FAR more rigorously?
galehar wrote:So you'll got the the skill screen more often to do what exactly? Try to guess what the hidden numbers are? Randomly toggling skills?
Bim wrote:The above would only happen if decimals were shown,
Bim wrote:but if they weren't then I think that'd be where the vagueness I was talking about comes in. You'd have to be checking other screens (a weapon speed/damage screen) to see how you were doing, and as such you'd be spending time on loads of different stats screens.
galehar wrote:That's very true. If we show numbers, players think that they are significant and that they have to manage them. Skill level decimals are not significant and should be hidden.