Merge Long and Short Blades


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Slime Squisher

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Post Saturday, 1st December 2018, 17:04

Merge Long and Short Blades

into "blades." this is blatantly taken from hellcrawl, but it is a very good change. the failures of riposte as a differentiating feature have been much discussed: it encourages swapping when being attacked but not melee-ing, as protection used to. it basically just adds a flat hard-to-gauge % to damage dealt. it confuses beginners into thinking that they should skew their character build in favor of ev. etc.

in hellcrawl, blades have a stabbing bonus, and daggers have a bonus stabbing bonus. it turns out that there are lots of ways to cause stabs: certain gods distract or confuse enemies, allies distract, and of course hexes and stealth enable the player to get stabs. w/ this change, the effectiveness of blades would actually be dependent on the way you build your character, and short blades would not just be a useless weapon category.

(of course i also advocate reducing the total # of blades) (maybe daggers shouldn't get a bonus bonus so you don't have to swap to them)

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Slime Squisher

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Post Saturday, 1st December 2018, 19:57

Re: Merge Long and Short Blades

Short blades are already OP when used correctly; giving short blade stabbing bonuses to long blades would just be overkill.

Building characters around riposte is not a newb trap; the first character that I actually bothered to win the game with was a riposte-oriented skald. Ripostes aren't limited to just adding some extra damage; they can also trigger utility from brands and auxiliary attacks. Even if they did only do damage, that would still be strategically distinct from vanilla melee attacks. Granted, relying *exclusively* on Dodging to keep a character alive isn't likely to pay off, but in most cases the deaths of such characters should be valuable learning experiences.

In principle, I don't see a problem with people switching to different weapon types for different situations (I've tried having wizards use polearms to reach across clouds of flame and short blades to stab enemies confused by mephitic clouds, which worked reasonably well, especially for gnolls). But, I can't really imagine why players would choose to try to riposte with no intention of also performing standard melee attacks with a long blade. Even aside from the issue that riposte chance is tied to long blades skill, there's also the issue that if you haven't trained your ability to do damage with long blades, then what's the point of getting free long blade attacks? I guess if you happen to be training Dodging already but no melee skills, and you find a nice artifact long blade with some desirable bonuses, then getting an occasional bonus riposte could be welcome icing on the cake, but if there's some gap in the in-game documentation that would lead players to think that a character who hasn't trained long blades should prioritize wielding a long blade for ripostes over some weapon-slot item that would enhance their primary means of killing monsters, then that's a gap that should be filled.

Unless you're saying they do train long blades, but find an amulet of the acrobat and decide it's better to dodge and riposte than trade swings? If that's the case, a better solution IMO would be to show the actual chances of a monster's attack connecting, then players could compare the chance when the acrobat is active or not and get a more accurate sense of how they should tactically control their character without having to rely on spoilers and math.

The min-maxer in me is drooling over the idea of a spriggan monk running around with Maxwell's Thermic Engine (at +1 aptitude) stabbing sleeping enemies and
little-size riposting anything that's lucky enough to get a chance to attack. But, the game designer in me thinks that these weapon categories play distinct enough roles that they shouldn't be combined... and especially not just so players won't have any reason to switch weapons.

Slime Squisher

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Post Saturday, 1st December 2018, 20:36

Re: Merge Long and Short Blades

Nekoatl wrote:But, I can't really imagine why players would choose to try to riposte with no intention of also performing standard melee attacks with a long blade.
This happens most often on early game spellcasters.

Nekoatl wrote:The min-maxer in me is drooling over the idea of a spriggan monk running around with Maxwell's Thermic Engine (at +1 aptitude) stabbing sleeping enemies and
little-size riposting anything that's lucky enough to get a chance to attack. But, the game designer in me thinks that these weapon categories play distinct enough roles that they shouldn't be combined... and especially not just so players won't have any reason to switch weapons.
I'm advocating for the removal of riposte altogether. I don't think short blades are OP. In fact I think they are rather bad barring exceptional circumstances where you have a broken brand on a fast weapon. Hexes, however, are perhaps overpowered. This is true even if you are wielding a battleaxe.

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Slime Squisher

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Post Saturday, 1st December 2018, 21:04

Re: Merge Long and Short Blades

I seldom even find long blades near the dungeon entrance, but if one of my spellcasters did find one and wasn't worried about it being cursed, I would probably equip it until I found something better. In the early game, unskilled melee attacks aren't even worthless (at least, not against everything you encounter), and even without investing any points in dodge, early game monsters will miss sometimes. If a riposte happens to trigger only once, that's still a marginal improvement over not having a weapon equipped at all. Even if beginners decide to try focusing on Dodging exclusively through the early game, they'll quickly learn that they need to actually have a way to kill monsters in order to make progress and experiment with more reasonable strategies. I don't see a problem here, and there would have to be a significant one to justify the removal of the riposte mechanic.

When I say "when used correctly", I mean "when used to stab". A stabbing specialist can one-shot even powerful uniques before they take any hostile action whatsoever. Hexes are generally a good means of enabling stabs, but they're certainly not the only means (and even enchanters would be well-advised to have alternatives on hand for highly magic resistant (or magic immune) enemies. If you're wielding a dagger and trying to straight-up melee dangerous enemies, then yeah, that's not going to work out so well, because that's not what they're for. Short blades specialists should not be stabbing only in "exceptional circumstances".

Crypt Cleanser

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Post Sunday, 2nd December 2018, 00:29

Re: Merge Long and Short Blades

Building characters around riposte is absolutely a newbie trap because the returns on riposte damage for increasing EV are very small (in most circumstances). The fact that people are still bringing up "riposte-oriented" characters as if that's a real thing that exists in DCSS is proof that it's a problem, imo. Fact is using a longblade versus a mace should have basically zero effect on your skilling decisions outside of what weapon school you're training. People tend to assume that they can go up like 10 EV and get massive damage but it just isn't true. It's not good to have mechanics that trick people into playing badly; see also spell hunger.

Short blades are not op or even particularly good; the "stabber" playstyle is weaker than just about anything else you can do in DCSS. There shouldn't be any balance problem from merging the two categories and I haven't heard any hellcrawl feedback indicating the contrary, fwiw. You might even want to buff some of the high end blades by 1 basedam to make them more competitive with other weapon types. The extra dagger stabbing bonus should probably go away though.

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Vaults Vanquisher

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Post Sunday, 2nd December 2018, 02:51

Re: Merge Long and Short Blades

The hellcrawl situation is good balance-wise. It makes stabbing a lot more bearable and somewhat stronger (non-hexes stabbing especially), which, combined with other relative advantages of stealth in hellcrawl, makes stabbing-oriented play gel a lot better with other viable strategic options. (Stealth is a lot better in hellcrawl because of the increased frequency of shaft and chase-through-unexplored-territory situations, including the hellorbrun.)
Last edited by tealizard on Sunday, 2nd December 2018, 03:17, edited 1 time in total.
This is where mechanical excellence and one-thousand four-hundred horsepower pays off.

Slime Squisher

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Post Sunday, 2nd December 2018, 03:09

Re: Merge Long and Short Blades

I don't know why anyone would think they can add 10 EV and start dishing out mad riposte damage, but if people actually think that, then that's all the more reason to put the actual chance a monster has to hit you in the log. Again, if you're relying solely on Dodging, you're going to have a bad time, and if players aren't learning that after trying it once or twice, that's a sign of inadequate feedback being provided, not a result of a problems with riposte itself.

A successful riposte-oriented character strikes a healthy balance between their skills, does not assume they'll ever be able to dodge all attacks and therefore does not neglect AC, and takes advantage of the extra properties of their attacks to further boost their survivability where possible, e.g. vampiric brand, draining brand, antimagic bite. My favorite is the aforementioned vine stalker skald because with maxed fighting, long blades, armour, evasion, and spellcasting, plus a good set of medium dragon armour, liberal use of Shroud of Golubria, appropriate resistances, and max Zen piety, there are very few enemies in the game that pose any threat to them whatsoever (large swarms of hellfire wielders being a notable example). Attacks you successfully dodge makes you stronger and the enemy weaker; attacks you fail to dodge are often deflected by your shroud; your respectable AC makes it harder for the shroud to break; attacks that gets past your shroud are mitigated by your AC; even without a vampiric brand, you still have peerless natural HP regeneration and a magic shield that's constantly getting recharged by your successful ripostes and standard melee attacks. If you haven't tried this, you don't know what you're missing (don't start with Zen though, Gozag is better to help you get a nice long blade that can preferably cauterize hydras... the stockpiled gold can be used to buy max Zen piety when you're ready to tackle malmutate or hell effects, and Potion Petition covers for vine stalker's inability to heal from quaffed potions). Also, don't use Spectral Weapon; the shared damage will drag you down.

It sounds to me like some players gave riposte a try, were frustrated when the experience didn't live up to expectations and didn't provide adequate feedback to help them adjust their attempts, and gave up on the mechanic before discovering its potential. Which is a shame, but again, the problem is the inadequate feedback, not the mechanic. Clarity may only be a minor design goal, but if lack of clarity is frustrating players to this extent, it should be addressed IMO. If there's a concern that having the % to hit shown in the log would be too distracting or whatever, why not show the chance for SH or EV to prevent an attack when examining a monster, next to the possible damage output? E.g. "You have an X% chance of blocking its attack with your first shield block and a Y% chance of dodging attacks from this monster."

As for stabbers, I'll admit that starting out with a background other than enchanter can make them hard to get off the ground, but once they get rolling, progress is mostly a breeze. You have to really load up on stealth bonuses for them to reach their full potential, but when you can just walk up to almost anything and instantly kill it before it can respond at all, that's not my idea of weak. Now, granted, certain parts of the game are significantly harder for stabbers to deal with than others, but most of those are optional. And, I'll admit that being unprepared to deal with the sudden arousal of a dangerous enemy can easily be fatal for the unprepared stabber, but if preparing for that possibility weren't necessary for success, then the stabbing mechanic would be broken to the point where it would need to be either reworked or removed. The biggest threats to an established stabber are overconfidence and greed.

Spell hunger, I can agree with you about. There are valid reasons to invest heavily in spellcasting, but spell hunger is generally not one of them. My vampire enchanters would be disappointed to lose the mechanic because neglecting spellcasting is a convenient way to keep them bloodless in the early game until some other nutrition sink is found (and with reworked vampires, there's not much of an upside to being full anyway), but that's such a niche case that I don't consider it a valid reason to keep the spell hunger mechanic.

Crypt Cleanser

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Post Sunday, 2nd December 2018, 03:48

Re: Merge Long and Short Blades

have you considered writing a guide for crawlwiki

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Slime Squisher

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Post Sunday, 2nd December 2018, 04:08

Re: Merge Long and Short Blades

That idea never occurred to me, but when I requested permission to be able to edit the wiki, I never got a reply, so thoughts of contributing to the wiki haven't exactly been on my mental radar.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Sunday, 2nd December 2018, 04:18

Re: Merge Long and Short Blades

Nekoatl wrote:It sounds to me like some players gave riposte a try, were frustrated when the experience didn't live up to expectations and didn't provide adequate feedback to help them adjust their attempts, and gave up on the mechanic before discovering its potential.
Dear god, dude, you're talking to the one person who has analysed riposte's effect in detail. Meanwhile your description of a "riposte-oriented character" makes it sound like you don't even know how riposte works in the first place.

Slime Squisher

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Post Sunday, 2nd December 2018, 05:24

Re: Merge Long and Short Blades

Okay, it appears I did misremember one point... apparently the chance to trigger a riposte is not tied to the Long Blades skill (though, of course, the chance of actually connecting with a riposte swing is). Maybe more people would appreciate the riposte mechanic if the proc chance scaled with long blades skill investment?

In any case, I'm not wrong about ripostes triggering brand effects and auxiliary attacks, and that alone is strategically significant enough to warrant keeping the mechanic. If people have suggestions for improvements, more power to them, but just tossing it would be a waste.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Sunday, 2nd December 2018, 05:31

Re: Merge Long and Short Blades

Nekoatl wrote:In any case, I'm not wrong about ripostes triggering brand effects and auxiliary attacks, and that alone is strategically significant enough to warrant keeping the mechanic.
Why? Why does this warrant keeping the mechanic? Melee attacks trigger brand effects and auxiliary attacks, that's what melee attacks do. Sure riposte lets you get them more often, but so does a faster weapon, such as a short blade.

Slime Squisher

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Post Sunday, 2nd December 2018, 06:06

Re: Merge Long and Short Blades

But with ripostes, the frequency of procs scales with the number of melee attackers. Using faster weapons can't replicate that scaling, and moreover, choosing a weapon that you can swing faster often involves sacrificing damage done per hit (and, consequently, in some cases, the chance of proc'ing a brand or the strength of a brand). Particularly for characters aiming to sustain themselves with procs, being able to scale those to the magnitude of incoming damage is valuable. Also, on turns where it makes sense to do something other than attacking, such as applying a buff or repositioning, being able to still get in a swing or two can be quite valuable.

I'm admittedly somewhat unclear on the exact mechanics of axe cleaving, but if I'm not mistaken, raw weapon damage of axes when facing multiple melee opponents generally outperforms long blades even with riposte, but long blades outperform axes on auxiliary attack procs, with brand effectiveness being a point I'm particularly unclear on (especially to the extent that reduced magnitude of axe splash damage impacts brands effectiveness).

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