Ranged weapons: alternative to ammo management?

[Psieye]

Many common-sense features have been removed from crawl over the years to streamline experience. To name a few:
- "To level up a skill, you need to exercise it with appropriate actions"
- "To butcher a corpse, you need a sharp tool (weapon) in your hands"
- Inventory weight limits

Let us examine a feature which everyone takes for granted and see what its mechanical contributions are: ranged ammunition. Years ago, I'd do a ritual of reading my enchant weapon scrolls while holding increasingly bigger stacks of arrows/bolts just to consolidate them into one inventory slot. Ammo enchantment level got cut, as did elemental ammo more recently. What does the current ammo situation bring to the gameplay table? I will use 2 bullet point styles to separate points about mundane vs special ammo.
- You should poke popcorn with melee weapon because not enough ammo to shoot everything
- Ammo you aren't skilled at using fill the 'junk' slot in item generation
- If it doesn't mulch, a single piece of ammo is highly likely to jam a door open
- Leaving behind a lot of fired ammo gives some incentive to return if you had to flee a location
- A couple spells consume ammo to act as an external limiter
> Special ammo act as powerful 'consumables' requiring skill and (depending on brand) a high chance of re-use
> Enemy use of 'consumables' is most likely to fall into these special ammo shots over wands or potions
> Large rock throwing enemies can be 'tanked' from afar: much easier to retreat out of sight while waiting for them to deplete ammo than to realise halfway across that they got a good damage roll


For the moment, let's set aside special ammo (including large rocks) and just think about mundane ammo. Which of the above do we care about? I think the incentive to learn some melee and Sandblast/StS limiters are all that we want. Item generation can find something else to fill the 'junk' slots or just generate nothingness. Are doors so OP against ranged enemies that jamming them open is an important balance feature? Is the nagging feeling of wanting to pick up your arrows relevant? Maybe we can re-design Sandblast/StS too.

Let us continue to not think of special ammo for now. Is there an alternate mechanic that could replace mundane ammo? I propose the following system for ranged launchers:
- If an enemy is in melee range to you, -ACC and -Attack Speed if you use a ranged launcher even if you're not shooting that melee-range target
- Bottomless quiver of unlimited mundane sling bulets, needles, arrows and bolts
-- Even enemies get infinite mundane ammo if they have a launcher
- Always mulches

Possible objection: "hyperoptimal player centaur can now infinite kite. Even if 'infinite ammo' was tactically limited somehow, being freed of strategic scarcity frees you to kite forever"

This is exactly what a CeCj playstyle would be like: kite while throwing nukes, rest upstairs, resume. It's something to think about. Besides, Boots of Running have been devalued with the additoin of more and more fast monsters in recent times.

Now let's add special ammo to our system:
- Sits in inventory (unlike mundane ammo)
- Always mulches
- Similar or smaller stack sizes to present when generated

Where does throwing come in?
- Infinite stones (perhaps with changes to damage formulae since slings will always use bullets)
- Kobolds/goblins with 3 stones just don't get any
- Finite tomahawks, javelins, large rocks

[dpeg]

This is all very reasonable. It's also a lot of work. Hopefully Lasty will find the time to comment here; he had a concept for ranged-reform that sounds very similar to this.

[Psieye]

Yes, this is an ideas thread. I'm switching off my devtime estimation sense while brainstorming. Outlandishly time-expensive ideas can inspire more pragmatic milestones.

[dpeg]

Psieye: No, no, I didn't mean that as a criticism. I think what I wanted to say is that something very similar might actually be in Crawl if one us had had more time.

To add some actual content: I believe it's important to think about how to distinguish the various forms of ranged damage (launchers, spells, evokers). Currently, ammunition management is one of the bits separating launchers from spells; it's not very much, though, and not a lot of fun. (And where it matters, you kept it, e.g. large rocks.) I think the two would be different also with unlimited ammunition.

[Leszczynek]

As someone who played a lot of Ogres I don't approve of making thrown weapons finite to fill a gap in an unrefined idea. The reason for your proposal is the lack of a solution for no launchers used by Throwing, right? Otherwise why would you differ between those and other physical ranged weaponry?

Large rocks are fun and making them so limited won't really make the game much more challenging (if at all), it will only make it less fun.

[Lasty]

I think this is the wrong direction to take ranged combat in. It does do away with the irritating aspects of it (inventory management, ammo collection), it doesn't deal with many other issues (weapon swapping, balance, distinctive playstyle).

If ranged combat is going to be in crawl, it needs to be something more than merely infinite-distance melee that forces extra weapon-swapping. Given that, I still prefer:

  Code:

<Sequell> ranged reform[1/1]: 1) give launchers their own equipment slot; 2) ammo always mulches; 3) keep skills the same (at least for now); 4) goldify ammo. Optional: condense skills; maybe remove slings for ammo consistency in condensed skills.

This plan deals with every problematic aspect of ranged combat: no need to switch weapons, no inventory clutter, no pickup. It also allows ranged to have its own identity as a strategically limited but more powerful form of attack -- the limitation on usage isn't tactical (conjurations) and the attack is neither close-range nor spammable (melee), and is driven by a skill that only affects this one powerful, single-target attack rather than a host of diverse effects (evocations).

[Rast]

I think this is the wrong direction to take ranged combat in. It does do away with the irritating aspects of it (inventory management, ammo collection), it doesn't deal with many other issues (weapon swapping, balance, distinctive playstyle).

Perfect.

1. You shouldn't need to swap out ranged weapons, any more than you need to swap out melee weapons. Unlimited basic ammo would fix this.
2. If it's imbalanced, adjust the numbers. My preferred solution is a nerf to damage at longer range.
3. Ranged is distinct enough already.

[goodcoolguy]

Why wouldn't you continue to use the ranged weapon at melee range in this picture?

[duvessa]

I think this is the wrong direction to take ranged combat in. It does do away with the irritating aspects of it (inventory management, ammo collection), it doesn't deal with many other issues (weapon swapping, balance, distinctive playstyle).

If ranged combat is going to be in crawl, it needs to be something more than merely infinite-distance melee that forces extra weapon-swapping. Given that, I still prefer:

  Code:

<Sequell> ranged reform[1/1]: 1) give launchers their own equipment slot; 2) ammo always mulches; 3) keep skills the same (at least for now); 4) goldify ammo. Optional: condense skills; maybe remove slings for ammo consistency in condensed skills.

This plan deals with every aspect of ranged combat: no need to switch weapons, no inventory clutter, no pickup. It also allows ranged to have its own identity as a strategically limited but more powerful form of attack -- the limitation on usage isn't tactical (conjurations) and the attack is neither close-range nor spammable (melee), and is driven by a skill that only affects this one powerful, single-target attack rather than a host of diverse effects (evocations).

When people say weapon swapping is annoying with current ranged they aren't literally saying that pressing the ' key is annoying. They're saying that it's annoying that you have to use a weaker attack against non-threatening monsters just to conserve ammo. Your planned reform not only doesn't "deal with" that aspect, it actively aims to make it worse by limiting ammo more.
Also not seeing how it addresses balance, or how "it uses a different skill from wands" makes it a distinctive playstyle (whatever the hell a playstyle is in the first place...), so I motion to leave the scoreboard at 0-0.

[DracheReborn]

Lasty: seems like a big improvement over status quo, at least

I'm still doubtful whether it really is a distinct playstyle from conjurations though. Still feels like conjurations, but better. Maybe if you tighten the strategic aspect by reducing ammo... but then it would start to impinge on wands.

[Psieye]

I think this is the wrong direction to take ranged combat in. It does do away with the irritating aspects of it (inventory management, ammo collection), it doesn't deal with many other issues (weapon swapping, balance, distinctive playstyle).

If ranged combat is going to be in crawl, it needs to be something more than merely infinite-distance melee that forces extra weapon-swapping. Given that, I still prefer:

  Code:

<Sequell> ranged reform[1/1]: 1) give launchers their own equipment slot; 2) ammo always mulches; 3) keep skills the same (at least for now); 4) goldify ammo. Optional: condense skills; maybe remove slings for ammo consistency in condensed skills.

This plan deals with every aspect of ranged combat: no need to switch weapons, no inventory clutter, no pickup. It also allows ranged to have its own identity as a strategically limited but more powerful form of attack -- the limitation on usage isn't tactical (conjurations) and the attack is neither close-range nor spammable (melee), and is driven by a skill that only affects this one powerful, single-target attack rather than a host of diverse effects (evocations).

Hmm, we agree on tackling inventory clutter and always mulch. Big (compared to wand charges) bank of strategic ammo still desired, to differentiate it from conj and evo.

I'll have to think on this, but one quick revision:
- New ammo tier: bad ammo. Infinite but is uselessly weak except against popcorn
- Strategic ammo now includes everything we currently have, is goldified

Melee is differentiated from bad ammo by being much better at damage. Especially when my "ranged combat suffers penalties if some enemy is next to you" proposal is added.

[Midn8]

My idea was that mundane ammo (bolts and arrows) be stored in quivers, and if you have the appropriate quiver then you can shoot. Quivers are bottomless and/or recharge like rods.

[sooheon]

If ranged combat is going to be in crawl, it needs to be something more than merely infinite-distance melee that forces extra weapon-swapping. Given that, I still prefer:

  Code:

<Sequell> ranged reform[1/1]: 1) give launchers their own equipment slot; 2) ammo always mulches; 3) keep skills the same (at least for now); 4) goldify ammo. Optional: condense skills; maybe remove slings for ammo consistency in condensed skills.

This plan deals with every problematic aspect of ranged combat: no need to switch weapons, no inventory clutter, no pickup. It also allows ranged to have its own identity as a strategically limited but more powerful form of attack -- the limitation on usage isn't tactical (conjurations) and the attack is neither close-range nor spammable (melee), and is driven by a skill that only affects this one powerful, single-target attack rather than a host of diverse effects (evocations).

I like everything except ammo always mulches. At least evokables and mana recharge. This would just make ranged the one form of attack that is worse the more you invest into and make use of it. If you're training ranged skills you want to use it, not to be incentivized to save it for a rainy day. Making your main form of attack a consumable means you incentivize all the bad valuable consumable related behavior (not using it when you should, because you might need it later). Imagine having "durability" counters on weapons, which would destroy the weapon artifact or not, once it reached 0. Or "memory" of spells fading with use, after a certain number of spell casts having them fade forever, unable to be relearned. This would be annoying as hell, why force it on ranged attacks?

[Lasty]

Making your main form of attack a consumable

In my plan, ranged weapons will never be a primary attack; ammo will be sharply limited. Ranged will be a powerful alternate attack that scales heavily with investment. As such characters will need to choose whether they want to spend skill points to improve this strong but limited resource or use it at a significantly less powerful base level.

[Psieye]

So, distinctive playstyle aka identity is an important thing to establish between the various groups of killdudes skills. The status quo looks something like this:

Melee skills: you put yourself in danger, so it's spammable and hits pretty hard given min delay swinging.

Launcher skills: full LoS, hits fairly hard, limited by strategic count of ammo.

Conjurations: variety in ranges, some demand more creative positioning requirements. Limited by tactical MP bar and forcing you to avoid heavy armour - at least in the earlygame of book starts. That and availability of books.

Evocations: really mixed bag of effects all powered by one skill. Some are tactically limited (rods), some are strategically limited (wands), some are inbetween (XP-recharged elemental evokers).


Evocations' identity is "I am unreliable as a killdudes investment unless you happen to have found a couple good rods or at least some elemental evokers". It's generally a mistake to level it just for wands.

Of note is that 'hybrid' almost always means "part-time melee guy". You don't see builds like "Conjurations/Bows". Launcher+magic styles don't use conjurations even though ammo is meant to make you seek an alternate killdudes skill. Maybe that's not a problem, but it looks like an untapped opportunity: allocating the XP budget in creative ways is the strategic game of crawl and offering more (balanced) options stimulates more creativity. Is there a better way to establish the identity of launcher skills?


One idea I've reached while typing all this: minimum range. Nothing in the game thus far has a minimum range as a limit. What if only launchers had this limit? Here's a possible flesh-out of this paradigm, which includes a few other big details:
- Condense the 4 launcher skills into two, then add evocations as a 'launcher skill'.
- All launchers cannot target units at range 2 or less, portal projectile lets you ignore this while you have mp per shot. Some higher-end launchers may have a greater min range.
- Goldify all ammo, mundane and special.
- Always mulch ammo.

Throwing/Slings get the following weapons:
-- Hunting Sling: infinite ammo stones (no bullets)
-- Blowgun: finite ammo needles
-- Fustibalus: finite ammo bullets
-- Penetrating Javelin of Always-Returning: XP-recharged 'one-shot' ammo
-- Mangonel: the GSC of launchers - finite-but-ample ammo (large rocks)

Bows/Crossbows get the following weapons:
-- Hand Crossbow: infinite ammo darts
-- Bow: finite ammo arrows
-- Arbalest: very finite ammo always-penetrating bolts - cannot target units at range 5 or less, portal projectile removes penetration due to smite
-- Triple crossbow: the sixfirhy of launchers - finite ammo bolts, always shoot 3 at a time, correspondingly slow attack speed

Evocations get the following 'weapons':
-- Fiddly Contraption of Inaccurate Missiles: infinite ammo, can miss (and have minimum range) just like other launchers, similar strength to throwing stones
-- convert various conjuration wands into 'launcher contraptions' which use finite 'ammo reagents'
-- keep or convert various conjuration rods (i.e. tactical recharge or finite ammo)

[Psieye]

Making your main form of attack a consumable

In my plan, ranged weapons will never be a primary attack; ammo will be sharply limited. Ranged will be a powerful alternate attack that scales heavily with investment. As such characters will need to choose whether they want to spend skill points to improve this strong but limited resource or use it at a significantly less powerful base level.

Ah, so "don't use launchers on popcorn" would extend to "don't use launchers on anything except really badass targets". This design intent would need to be loudly communicated in-game, with such moves as:
- Remove hunter/AM as starters
- Fewer launcher skills
- Monster ammo stack downsizing

"This is strictly a secondary killdudes" niche of ranged weapons can work, but the sharp paradigm shift needs to be communicated clearly. It's somewhat viable to go "ranged is my primary killdudes" at present.

[tasonir]

Psieye: Imho I'd say it's entirely viable to go ranged for your primary killdudes, and I'd prefer if that remains possible. The start has always been a bit tricky as it's often better to pick a melee start, wait until you find a launcher (rather than picking a background with one) and then training it once you have enough ammo, but for the rest of the game you can kill hard things with ranged and use melee for popcorn.

[sooheon]

My fear is that by having such a clearly defined niche for ranged, it's not giving players an *alternative* play style, it's just giving players one more tool in their toolbox for the *right* way to play. Already in crawl, a lot of good players recommend converging on a hybrid style, this would be another no brainer to add into that, just like evocables. Almost every character wants to pick up that lamp of fire, and use it with a bit of evo investment. After Lasty's proposal, almost every character would still be mainly melee, maybe hybrid, also picking up one ranged option for appropriate tactical use. This would make the game more homogenized, not more diverse and interesting.

[Psieye]

tasonir, sooheon: thank you for your feedback on Lasty's vision. I would appreciate hearing some feedback on the "minimum range" alternate vision posted after his post. A lack of feedback on alternatives while only complaining about one vision slows progress.

[Lasty]

My fear is that by having such a clearly defined niche for ranged, it's not giving players an *alternative* play style, it's just giving players one more tool in their toolbox for the *right* way to play.

I believe you're correct, but I see that as an improvement on the status quo. Right now, ranged weapons play exactly like melee with two differences: 1) instead of reaching one tile like polearms, they reach 7 tiles, making them crazy overpowered; 2) they are incredibly annoying to use. I don't think 1) or 2) is a good differentiator, which means that if we don't find a better one, we should remove ranged combat entirely. I also don't think 2) is a good way of balancing 1).

My proposal is an attempt to remove 2), making ranged as non-irritating as possible while also positioning ranged out of "primary attack" territory, allowing it to be balanced by other features. Take, for example, the proposal to prevent ranged from working (or from doing good damage) at close range. That proposal means that you'd always be better off selecting melee at close range, which means you'd want to weapon-swap at close range, which means even more weapon-swapping than now; it also means that you're generally gonna be better off using melee + LOS management, since that's cheaper and still effective.

However, once ranged isn't a primary attack we're much more free to play with its dimensions. We can increase how much damage scales with skill. We can impose restrictions on where and when it can be used effectively, like the range restrictions. We can play with way more variables, because it isn't constantly butting up against melee on one side and conjurations on the other. It will still be butting up against Evo to some extent, but I believe that it should be possible to distinguish it from Evo in feel.

And if not, well, removal is still an option.

Edit: In this post I didn't get into how ranged weapons as a primary attack is bad for crawl because it requires the least positioning of all current crawl attacks; that's another reason to take it out of primary attack territory. Not caring about positioning is better as a sometimes food.

Edit2: There's absolutely no reason to remove ranged weapon backgrounds. IMO, these changes will make them far more interesting than the old versions: you start with a limited but powerful resource; like other limited-but-powerful-resource backgrounds (assassin, artificer) you also get a crummy melee option you need to diversify away from generally. Well, AM doesn't currently, but they have enough ammo to kill a few goblins and get one.

[VeryAngryFelid]

It was suggested in previous threads and even successfully tried in circus animals fork but launchers might deal different amount of damage at different distance. Less damage than melee at point blank, still some respectable damage at high distance.

[Psieye]

It was suggested in previous threads and even successfully tried in circus animals fork but launchers might deal different amount of damage at different distance. Less damage than melee at point blank, still some respectable damage at high distance.

ranged weapons play exactly like melee with two differences:
1) instead of reaching one tile like polearms, they reach 7 tiles, making them crazy overpowered;
2) they are incredibly annoying to use.

for example, the proposal to prevent ranged from working (or from doing good damage) at close range.
A) you'd always be better off selecting melee at close range -> even more weapon-swapping than now
B) you're generally gonna be better off using melee + LOS management, since that's cheaper and still effective.

In this post I didn't get into how ranged weapons as a primary attack is bad for crawl because it requires the least positioning of all current crawl attacks; that's another reason to take it out of primary attack territory. Not caring about positioning is better as a sometimes food.

Ah, B) is a valid point. A) can be dealt with by incorporating details from your proposal to make ranged weapons its own equipment slot, i.e. "press f to fire launcher, no weapon swap necessary". But B) points out the loss in tactical thinking, i.e. "choose between mundane or special ammo" is often answered by "neither, just melee with LOS tactics as normal". In other words, launcher use is pretty much a no-brainer in the current paradigm or my proposal - "is this a popcorn?" isn't an interesting decision.

After Lasty's proposal, almost every character would still be mainly melee, maybe hybrid, also picking up one ranged option for appropriate tactical use. This would make the game more homogenized, not more diverse and interesting.

sooheon's concern boils down to "Melee + LOS management is king, everyone picks it up". This is ambiguous. If the concern meant "I don't like how everyone kills popcorn with melee" then it's in the same category as "I want feature X purely for flavour reasons" (i.e. not a priority in crawl). In-between 'popcorn' and 'this is serious business' are the 'reasonable threats' - those enemies which are routine to kill but would kill you if you don't deal with them in a timely manner. This is the strategic challenge that crawl presents: "have you been spending your XP budget to keep your killdudes routine up-to-date?" I don't think it's fair to say "almost every character" deals with this middle tier with mainly (no-spells) melee.

Regarding diversity...

However, once ranged isn't a primary attack we're much more free to play with its dimensions. We can increase how much damage scales with skill. We can impose restrictions on where and when it can be used effectively, like the range restrictions. We can play with way more variables, because it isn't constantly butting up against melee on one side and conjurations on the other. It will still be butting up against Evo to some extent, but I believe that it should be possible to distinguish it from Evo in feel.

In my view, for this launcher revamp to have succeeded, it must be viable to build a launcher/conj character who only 'resorts' to melee for the utterly trivial popcorn.

I feel the Evo issue should be discussed too, but first people need to swallow this 'strategic launcher' paradigm. Perhaps some concrete design drafts should be provided here, which can be tuned with feedback. Otherwise people will keep assuming this is like the old ranged combat but with minor tweaks. For this thought exercise, consider condensing all the launcher skills into one - dividing them up again is an exercise for later.

[Lasty]

@VAF:

Take, for example, the proposal to prevent ranged from working (or from doing good damage) at close range.

edit: @Psieye:

  Code:

<Sequell> ranged reform[1/1]: [...] Optional: condense skills; maybe remove slings for ammo consistency in condensed skills.

[Psieye]

@Psieye:

  Code:

<Sequell> ranged reform[1/1]: [...] Optional: condense skills; maybe remove slings for ammo consistency in condensed skills.

It is good to see we share that thought. But what I requested was a flesh-out of a design draft. I can draft a proposal later in time. Without actual details, people tend to not think about the topic properly.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Probably I should have written more details as it looks I was misunderstood. I am suggesting to decrease damage at long distance, not at close distance.
Something like 100% of current damage at point blank and 70-80% at the edge of view, scaled linearly with distance in between. So you cannot just kite at the edge of view (too low damage), you are a bit interested in bringing monsters closer to you before shooting at them (because ammo is scarce and you don't want to waste it doing small damage) but you still have an option to shoot 6 times at that very dangerous monster while it approaches you. Also you may still want to have strong melee because it is more powerful than shooting even at point blank.

[Psieye]

Also you may still want to have strong melee because it is more powerful than shooting even at point blank.

This detail is exactly what Lasty is trying to attack. Assuming your detail, using a launcher at point blank should unquestionably do more (like, 300%) damage than melee (assuming reasonably close skill levels) because launchers will use strategically limited ammo.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Also you may still want to have strong melee because it is more powerful than shooting even at point blank.

This detail is exactly what Lasty is trying to attack. Assuming your detail, using a launcher at point blank should unquestionably do more (like, 300%) damage than melee (assuming reasonably close skill levels) because launchers will use strategically limited ammo.

Why? Is it good to have OP (instakill?) items now according to crawl design philosophy? Even things like lamps of fire or rods of inaccuracy are not that powerful.
I think the point of ranged weapons is to attack at range, not instakill everything at point blank.

[Psieye]

Also you may still want to have strong melee because it is more powerful than shooting even at point blank.

This detail is exactly what Lasty is trying to attack. Assuming your detail, using a launcher at point blank should unquestionably do more (like, 300%) damage than melee (assuming reasonably close skill levels) because launchers will use strategically limited ammo.

Why? Is it good to have OP (instakill?) items now according to crawl design philosophy? Even things like lamps of fire or rods of inaccuracy are not that powerful.
I think the point of ranged weapons is to attack at range, not instakill everything at point blank.

You skipped over "Strategically limited". Suppose you could only shoot that launcher 8 times in the entire game.

Also, these numbers are intended to be thought experiments. Which really should be fleshed out properly in full design proposals.


Fine. The correct response from me should be "I refuse to react to hasty conclusions off incomplete proposals". Piecemeal reactions are a waste of my time.

[VeryAngryFelid]

You skipped over "Strategically limited". Suppose you could only shoot that launcher 8 times in the entire game.

That's easy. I will ignore the skill unless I find 8 ammo before training and every ammo one-shots orb of fire.

Also, these numbers are intended to be thought experiments. Which really should be fleshed out properly in full design proposals.

Yes, I realize it, this is why I am suggesting to consider a different paradigm. Ranged weapons should be trickier to use (require tactics) and should give an advantage at distance, dealing more damage than melee at point blank makes me think it should not be called a ranged weapon. Call it "super powerful melee tool" or something.

[Psieye]

This thread is now juggling multiple paradigm suggestions. Short posts are now ineffective at clear communication. I think it's served good enough purpose already, I'm happy to let it die if people won't put the time in to give fleshed out specs of the specific paradigm they are arguing for.

[VeryAngryFelid]

If it is directed at me, I don't think I should post long messages if I can explain everything in short ones.
100% damage at point blank, 70% at the edge of view without darkness, scaled linearly.
Solves all problems:
1) kiting is bad because ammo is potentially limited
2) shooting at long distance has disadvantage over shooting at short distance. It means you will want to lure those Yaktaurs as close as possible for shooting at them. Now tactics starts to matter.
3) no problem with unlimited ammo because ranged is no longer OP.
4) ranged becomes a standalone playstyle, no need to branch into melee if you are smart to lure monsters close before shooting at them. You can compare it to short blades, bad vs high AC monsters but still possible to play.

What else do you need from me to understand the idea?

Edit. In case it is not clear, I have already played it in circus animals, with unlimited ammo and range penalty.

[minstrel]

My fear is that by having such a clearly defined niche for ranged, it's not giving players an *alternative* play style, it's just giving players one more tool in their toolbox for the *right* way to play.

I agree with this assessment, although I disagree with Lasty in that I think removing ranged entirely would be preferable to evoc-ifying ranged combat. The current evocables fill a niche of strong and (renewable or limited) resources that scale with a skill and I'd rather not juggle more.

One idea that hasn't been mentioned yet is having ranged trigger attacks of opportunity at point blank. This gives the player sufficient incentive to diversify into defenses and alternate attack methods (adds interesting choices) without sweeping changes to the mechanics of ranged use itself. Ammo finite-ness can be handled after, largely as a quality of life issue.

[Rast]

Making your main form of attack a consumable

In my plan, ranged weapons will never be a primary attack; ammo will be sharply limited. Ranged will be a powerful alternate attack that scales heavily with investment. As such characters will need to choose whether they want to spend skill points to improve this strong but limited resource or use it at a significantly less powerful base level.

So, same as evokables.

[Psieye]

One idea that hasn't been mentioned yet is having ranged trigger attacks of opportunity at point blank.

Every idea which doesn't start with "I think ranged attacks as primary killdudes is perfectly fine for crawl - here's how I refute Lasty's specific concerns" gets swallowed into "once ranged isn't a primary attack we're much more free to play with its dimensions". In other words, spend less words on your ideas, more words on addressing Lasty's analysis if you want to object to his thoughts.

So, same as evokables.

With less variety in effects and much more influence from skill. Lasty has already pre-empted you on the comparison to Evo.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Every idea which doesn't start with "I think ranged attacks as primary killdudes is perfectly fine for crawl - here's how I refute Lasty's specific concerns" gets swallowed into "once ranged isn't a primary attack we're much more free to play with its dimensions". In other words, spend less words on your ideas, more words on addressing Lasty's analysis if you want to object to his thoughts.

I hope it is still possible to question the basic premise at this point. I mean being able to use ranged as primary attack. Melee encourages fighting in corridors and closed terrain having hard time in Vaults and Zot, new ranged as described by me might encourage fighting in open terrain having easier time in Vaults and Zot. I realize it is subjective but personally I enjoy pure playstyles the most, for example, melee without spells, blaster caster without significant melee, ranged character without significant melee etc. New ranged as described by Lasty looks too similar to evocations IMHO, you train it with all characters who are lucky to find corresponding items. The more items you found the higher you train it.

[minstrel]

Every idea which doesn't start with "I think ranged attacks as primary killdudes is perfectly fine for crawl - here's how I refute Lasty's specific concerns" gets swallowed into "once ranged isn't a primary attack we're much more free to play with its dimensions". In other words, spend less words on your ideas, more words on addressing Lasty's analysis if you want to object to his thoughts.

I was offering a way in which some issues with ranged could be addressed, which would free up the issue of ammo management to become one of quality of life, rather than game balance.

Here is something more comprehensive, addressing it in the manner in which you requested:

I think ranged attacks as primary killdudes is perfectly fine for crawl - here's how I refute Lasty's specific concerns.

The concerns below taken from Lasty's first post, which seemed to provide the broad outline of the issues he currently sees with ranged.

no need to switch weapons

Give launchers their own equipment slot, as proposed.

no inventory clutter, no pickup

Make basic ammo unlimited (arrows, bolts, bullets, tomahawks). Possibly tweak damage values.

It also allows ranged to have its own identity as a strategically limited but more powerful form of attack -- the limitation on usage isn't tactical (conjurations) and the attack is neither close-range nor spammable (melee), and is driven by a skill that only affects this one powerful, single-target attack rather than a host of diverse effects (evocations).

I reject this premise. This is single-target evocations with a higher skill requirement. Narrowing their focus to direct damage is not an interesting enough differentiation from existing evocations, by itself.

However, if we also add to my proposal a penalty to using ranged as a substitute for melee, in the form of retaliatory attacks at point-blank, we give players a more interesting choice than just "how many points to invest in ranged", as with current evocations. Now the player can choose to use ranged as a primary attack, but will pay a price with interesting tradeoffs:

- Do I go all in on ranged, and gamble on my damage output overcoming my squashiness? (this is the current no brainer, train until min delay, aka melee - ramping up the damage they take at close range will make it no longer a no brainer)
- Do I add some defensives, and still try to shoot at close range?
- Do I hybridize more strongly, and train melee/ranged/defense?

This allows ranged to have its own identity in the same way that the recent melee differentiations (cleaving, riposte, etc) have. You have a weapon choice with unlimited range and quantity, but which carries high risk at close range.

balance

Assuming balance refers to the fact that ranged right now is, ammo and species permitting, always optimal, strong disincentives at close range address this.

distinctive playstyle

The three hypothetical choices above illustrate why this would promote not one, but several new distinctive playstyles.

In summary, my proposal does indeed evoc-ify ranged, to the extent that every character will likely want to equip a ranged weapon, but that is also true now (throwing), and with any proposal that involves a dedicated ranged slot.

What it does that the other proposal does not do, is offer a route to make ranged a full-time profession with interesting drawbacks, in the way that Pakellas aimed, but failed, to do for evocations.

[Psieye]

It's been a bad week in general at work, seems I've dragged my frustrations from RL into this thread. My apologies for the outburst.

I hope it is still possible to question the basic premise at this point.

It is, but success depends on a somewhat counter-intuitive way of discourse. The standard protocol for discussion - heck, negotiation - is to propose an idea, defend it at all costs, get heavily invested emotionally, have spectacular clashes of will with opponents, offer slight variants of the idea as a compromise, come out with frustration and no change in the other side's opinion. Compound this with the fact that humans tend to make pessimistic snap-inferences.

Observe the history today's posts: Lasty presents his underlying concerns and offers some drastic solutions to address them. Cue what appears to be a panic-induced series of short posts offering feedback and possible alternate solutions. Because of the lack of 'diplomatic wrapping' around the ideas, they invite the snap-inference of "I don't give a shit why you're doing this, don't take away my toy. Here's a modest compromise that lets me still have my toy. I don't trust you to know what's best for the game."

No mention of:
- "Let me see if I understand you correctly"
- "I respect these are valid concerns"

Because of the lack of the above, the following aren't transmitted properly (if present at all):
- "These are my concerns" (I respected yours, please reciprocate the sincereity)
- "This alternate idea addresses both of our concerns"

It also allows ranged to have its own identity as a strategically limited but more powerful form of attack -- the limitation on usage isn't tactical (conjurations) and the attack is neither close-range nor spammable (melee), and is driven by a skill that only affects this one powerful, single-target attack rather than a host of diverse effects (evocations).

I reject this premise. This is single-target evocations with a higher skill requirement. Narrowing their focus to direct damage is not an interesting enough differentiation from existing evocations, by itself.

However, if we also add to my proposal a penalty to using ranged as a substitute for melee, in the form of retaliatory attacks at point-blank, we give players a more interesting choice than just "how many points to invest in ranged", as with current evocations. Now the player can choose to use ranged as a primary attack, but will pay a price with interesting tradeoffs:

- Do I go all in on ranged, and gamble on my damage output overcoming my squashiness? (this is the current no brainer, train until min delay, aka melee - ramping up the damage they take at close range will make it no longer a no brainer)
- Do I add some defensives, and still try to shoot at close range?
- Do I hybridize more strongly, and train melee/ranged/defense?

This allows ranged to have its own identity in the same way that the recent melee differentiations (cleaving, riposte, etc) have. You have a weapon choice with unlimited range and quantity, but which carries high risk at close range.

In summary, my proposal does indeed evoc-ify ranged, to the extent that every character will likely want to equip a ranged weapon, but that is also true now (throwing), and with any proposal that involves a dedicated ranged slot.

Thank you for this write-up. If I understand correctly, the conversation on concerns stands thus:
- We're all agreed that ranged attacks have valid issues at present
- One is an interface annoyance factor, which can be resolved with a dedicated launcher slot and goldifying ammo
- If need be, compacting the number of 'launcher skills' is on the table. As yet, nobody is raising objections on diversity between launchers (aside from Evo vs launchers)

Concern: if limit-by-scarcity is removed, physical weapon tactics collapse to uninteresting decisions. Attempts to nerf launcher power just means "ignore ranged, just melee always", attempts to nerf by positions means "learn this easy pattern of when to shoot vs melee, then just stick to it". Scarcity opens the way for big power to be unleashed after tense, non-trivial contemplations - both at the tactical level and the strategic level.

Concern: melee holds a monopoly on skilling decisions, removing the viability of an alternate primary killdudes further collapses the skill decisions. There is no tension in always deciding "I tech melee to min delay, then get some ranged as an auxiliary killdudes - invest more if I've stockpiled a lot of ammo".

[HardboiledGargoyle]

Why can't ranged be simply infinite and weak? Games usually balance melee's disadvantage of needing to be adjacent by making it monstrously powerful compared to ranged. Crawl keeps them about equally powerful. But polearm damage got nerfed when they all got reaching, so the idea is understood, but not consistently applied.

Most shooters give you enough ammo to comfortably kill everything with bullets. Having limited ammo prevents abuses like laying down inefficient suppressing fire at a corner as dumb monsters walk into it. Shooters have that excuse for limiting ammo, but we don't, because those are not viable tactics in Crawl.

The other ammo model can be found in the survival horror genre, where it is basically a consumable for killing stuff. But why make 'limited' and 'ranged' synonymous? It's easy flavor, sure, and in e.g. survival horror the ranged aspect tends to not matter much in terms of gameplay, but I don't see why those things have to dictate the direction of ranged reform.

If ranged becomes significantly stronger it could get to the point where it's taking out the most dangerous monsters at distance before they get a chance to do anything to you, which may be unwanted, and avoided by having limited super-melee governed by its own skill.

And, how would you buff weapons the way you want? Give them 30 damage, and they're useful at 0 skill - bad? Giving them quickblade delay scaling and UC damage scaling might work. Or, detach ranged from the weapon system?

I don't get why we're not very free to play with the "dimensions" of a primary attack. One primary attack "butts up" against other primary attacks?

P.S. how do you like the existing prototypes for reformed-ranged, like the invocations of certain gods like Beogh?

[DracheReborn]

Why can't ranged be simply infinite and weak? Games usually balance melee's disadvantage of needing to be adjacent by making it monstrously powerful compared to ranged. Crawl keeps them about equally powerful. But polearm damage got nerfed when they all got reaching, so the idea is understood, but not consistently applied.

In principle, I'm not opposed to this. Ranged becomes subsumed into melee as a new weapon type (basically an extra long polearm).

I do think though that this just reinforces melee's primacy. In this scenario, a ranged character would almost certainly have to train some melee - and would be encouraged to switch to melee dang near every fight. The probable result is that ranged becomes a secondary form of attack, much like Lasty's proposal does but in a different way.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Why can't ranged be simply infinite and weak? Games usually balance melee's disadvantage of needing to be adjacent by making it monstrously powerful compared to ranged. Crawl keeps them about equally powerful. But polearm damage got nerfed when they all got reaching, so the idea is understood, but not consistently applied.

We already have Slings and they will not be OP with unlimited ammo IMHO. Very useful early game, not as useful late game unless you are lucky to find lots of slaying. I have impression that new ranged will be quite the opposite - useless early game (because it is a good idea to save ammo, you don't want to spend it with low skill/damage), somewhat useful late game (just sometimes, because of ammo scarceness).

[Rast]

Why can't ranged be simply infinite and weak? Games usually balance melee's disadvantage of needing to be adjacent by making it monstrously powerful compared to ranged. Crawl keeps them about equally powerful. But polearm damage got nerfed when they all got reaching, so the idea is understood, but not consistently applied.

In principle, I'm not opposed to this. Ranged becomes subsumed into melee as a new weapon type (basically an extra long polearm).

I do think though that this just reinforces melee's primacy. In this scenario, a ranged character would almost certainly have to train some melee - and would be encouraged to switch to melee dang near every fight. The probable result is that ranged becomes a secondary form of attack, much like Lasty's proposal does but in a different way.

This has already been covered: reduce damage at longer range, but keep the short range damage high enough to make swapping out unnecessary.

[dpeg]

Rast: As far as I understand, that's the solution nobody on the devteam wants.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Rast: As far as I understand, that's the solution nobody on the devteam wants.

And I don't understand why. First they complain that launchers require no tactics to use and then they refuse to fix it. New ranged still won't require tactics, right? Just strategic decisions like "should I train it and should I use it in this fight or save ammo?".

[DracheReborn]

This has already been covered: reduce damage at longer range, but keep the short range damage high enough to make swapping out unnecessary.

I didn't like that idea originally because it seemed to incentivize tracking your exact distance to the monster. But if it's a binary deal like 70% of damage at >1 range and 100% at pointblank (melee) range, then sure it could work.

[Psieye]

New ranged still won't require tactics, right?

Wrong. EVERY idea suggested to introduce tactics into ranged combat is on the table. Arguing about details which devs agree to try out won't proceed this discussion. Imagine there's a forum bot that quotes every ranged-tactics idea and then replies with "sure, now wouldn't that be just as (or even more) interesting with scarce ammo too?"

The point of contestion is "ammo scarcity makes every possible implementation of ranged weapons a lot more interesting". Any argument that goes "ammo scarcity is unnecessary to fix ranged, here's an alternate idea to fix it" is missing the point. Counterarguments to Lasty's vision should strive to be completely devoid of ideas and just argue universal demerits of ammo scarcity. Will ammo scarcity bring undesired behaviour no matter what else changes about ranged weapons?

[VeryAngryFelid]

It looks like I missed it then. Can new ranged character shoot at the edge of view with the same damage as at adjacent monster? Is terrain still unimportant because of this? So you basically see a dangerous monster and press tab a few times in a row.

Edit. Probably it is not me who is missing things. We are NOT talking about ammo scarcity in last few posts, it is about different damage at different distance aka tactics.

[Siegurt]

Will ammo scarcity bring undesired behaviour no matter what else changes about ranged weapons?

Of course no one can argue that this is the case without talking about what those other changes might be, even if it is purely speculative. I mean part of ranged reform might be every arrow I fire delivers me a free small cheese pizza to my doorstep, which would be awesome and i could hardly argue about the limitations imposed on ammo at that point

So the some of the possible ways it could look with actually limiting ammo look something like this:

Possibility 1: ranged weapons look mostly the same, but are limited in use, this has the drawback of ranged skills become suboptimal, they compete with conjuration and evocation, both of which are effective at killing things at range. This effectively kills ranged weapon skill training.

Possibility 2: We drastically increase ranged weapon power to compensate for use limits, depending on the XP required to make use of it and how good the bonus damage is, it might or might not be optimal, however it would only be optimal if it constitutes an overall power increase, meaning players go up in the power spiral (that might be a downside) if it's suboptimal, then we are back to the results of possibility 1 above.

Possibility 3: We reduce the competition space, if as an example, we removed all attack wands (or made attack wand charges rarer than ammo), then ranged weapons would be the primary non spell form of ranged attack leaving them primacy in at least one domain, giving more freedom from balance concerns. Other possibilities in this domain include limiting the range of evocables and or spells (giving ranged weapons primacy in actual range) and anything else that limits the competition so that there is at least one aspect in which ranged weapons would dominate, note that you would still face 2 above, this just gives you the flexibility to do so without making players significantly more powerful.

Possibility 4: We add some sort of secondary usefulness to ranged skills, evocation is a very good skill, because it gives you a bunch of flexibility, even if you aren't attacking with it, giving some passive or active flexibilty to ranged skills when you aren't attacking with it would give it less one dimensional-ness, although coming up with some thing that ranged skills could do that isn't shooting stuff but still feels intuitive is hard (the only thing that came to mind was dodging ranged attacks, and that sound pretty lame to me) by adding some flexibility, we reduce the need for a power boost, but it requires some creative juice to get something here.

Possibility 5: something else that i didn't think of


In short, you either need to stretch to keep the ranged skill competitive with further changes, any category of which i have thought of so far has some drawbacks, or decide it is a complete loss, and drop it entirely. Either outcome is a negative, although not an insurmountable one.

That only focuses on the problem with the skill itself. Personally, i have no problem losing the "ranged weapon as primary weapon" playstyle, but others have expressed this as a concern as well.

Those are the only two negatives i have seen directed at limited ammo specifically.

[minstrel]

New ranged still won't require tactics, right?

Wrong. EVERY idea suggested to introduce tactics into ranged combat is on the table. Arguing about details which devs agree to try out won't proceed this discussion. Imagine there's a forum bot that quotes every ranged-tactics idea and then replies with "sure, now wouldn't that be just as (or even more) interesting with scarce ammo too?"

The point of contestion is "ammo scarcity makes every possible implementation of ranged weapons a lot more interesting". Any argument that goes "ammo scarcity is unnecessary to fix ranged, here's an alternate idea to fix it" is missing the point. Counterarguments to Lasty's vision should strive to be completely devoid of ideas and just argue universal demerits of ammo scarcity. Will ammo scarcity bring undesired behaviour no matter what else changes about ranged weapons?

Quick note first : I want to reply more to your response to me earlier, where you listed some points where we could come to agreement about the basal questions, but real-life-work-stuff-headaches getting in the way. Hopefully soon. Short version: I agree with most of what you laid out.

Back to point: If I read you right, I think you're saying alternate ranged implementations are welcome, but to include a defense of why making ammo scarce wouldn't also make that implementation more interesting or why it would introduce undesirable behavior. But then you're asking that only scarcity be discussed, without mention of details of alternate ranged implementations, which has me a little confused.

In any implementation, such as that one I suggest (point blank counterattacks), that strives to make ranged a primary killdudes option, scarcity will lead to undesirable behavior. In a game with random generation of monsters and random distribution of ammo, scarcity will always push players to hedge their bets against using ranged as primary. This is objectively undesirable within the subjective domain of "ranged primary is desirable". In current Crawl, it's seldom wise to go full ranged until you've saved up ammo for bows/crossbows/worshiped trog/okawaru. For throwing and slings, that's seldom an issue, and scarcity does not practically exist (although issues of late game viability exist for slings and I don't know throwing very well without trog/oka).

So, ammo scarcity and ranged primary as a goal appear to me to be mutually exclusive.

Ammo scarcity and ranged as evocable-style secondary damage are compatible. However, as I tried to lay out earlier, I can't think of an implementation in which this isn't redundant with evocables and an uninteresting choice. I would classify uninteresting choices as undesirable behavior.

I can imagine ranged secondary with ammo scarcity working just fine in a Crawl in which evocables are removed. But as-is, evocables at least have an interesting set of mechanics, so I'd rather keep evocables and dump ranged or make it into interesting gameplay/choices, albeit with a somewhat boring mechanic, like melee.

To slightly rephrase the above for clarity: rather than add a second set of uninteresting gameplay choices, with uninteresting mechanics, (Lasty's ranged proposal) to a set of uninteresting gameplay choices, with interesting mechanics, (evocables), I'd like to dump them entirely, or make them into something with interesting gameplay choices and uninteresting mechanics (my ranged proposal).

Will ammo scarcity bring undesired behaviour no matter what else changes about ranged weapons?

To reiterate on your final question - no, ammo scarcity will not bring undesired behavior no matter what else changes about ranged weapons. It is not true, however, to say that "sure, now wouldn't" (any other implementation) "be just as (or even more) interesting with scarce ammo too?" must then follow. Ammo scarcity will sometimes bring undesirable behavior in certain implementations. I don't see how we can discuss scarcity in a vacuum - it is contingent upon how ranged is implemented. Asking that counterarguments be devoid of ideas, as far as I can see, is not possible.

Addendum:

A little perfect world cloud-gazing here: if we could make scarce ammo ranged into something that presents both interesting strategic choices (IE make it viable to invest heavily, not just "enough for what you've found") and something that presents an interesting set of mechanical effects, it would be enough to differentiate it from evocations for me, and I'd love to see it. I don't see a path there, primarily because I can't see how meaningful scarcity and heavy skill investment can coexist, but I'd love to be proven wrong!

[DracheReborn]

minstrel: I agree with your post. There are 2 ways to take ranged, either as primary attack without ammo scarcity (in the same design space as melee weapons, and is the status quo) or as secondary attack with ammo scarcity (in the same design space as wands). It is quite possible that NEITHER path leads to an interesting result, so I think any brainstorming should be open to both in an effort to save ranged.

As to your particular proposal though (point blank counterattacks) I can't say I see any alternative to switching to melee. The other things you've mentioned (raising ranged skill higher or defenses higher) seem unlikely to have more impact than simply training up a melee weapon.

[dowan]

To me, another direction to take ranged, which is fairly similar to where it is now, but not quite the same, is to make it a strictly worse version of conjurations, with strictly worse damage than melee.

At that point, I'd remove the ranged skills entirely, and have it be driven by fighting and str/dex. Have ranged weapons have low enough damage to never be better than an appropriate melee weapon, or a modestly trained conjuration.

This puts ranged into the "Well if I've got nothing better to do" category, but I think that's ok because it's not competing with anything anymore. At that point I'd also go with the separate ranged weapon slot, and probably drop ammo entirely. Alternatively, have extremely rare ammo that's actually competitive with melee and conjurations. Although that limited ammo then kinda directly duplicates wands, except it's based on stats instead of evocations...

The biggest problem I see with this approach is that it's a straight buff to characters who weren't training any ranged skill anyway. But the advantage is that it doesn't have to compete with evocations, melee, or conjurations, because you don't have to choose between them.