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Why is rN+ different?

PostPosted: Wednesday, 22nd February 2012, 14:43
by sardonica
Why is it different from fire and ice? I've been racking my brain but can't really imagine why it works differently.

EDIT: For fire and ice, resistances directly reduce damage and scales directly. But for rN, you've got different scales for torment and not only that, it blocks drain with yet another different scale. I just wonder why the differences are not made more explicit in the interface, and how the values were arrived at.

Re: Why is rN+ different?

PostPosted: Wednesday, 22nd February 2012, 14:45
by BlackSheep
Would you care to elaborate on that?

Re: Why is rN+ different?

PostPosted: Wednesday, 22nd February 2012, 16:22
by Zicher
BlackSheep wrote:Would you care to elaborate on that?


Here are the numbers: rF and rC both reduce damage by 50% at +, 33% at ++ and 20% at +++.
rN reduces damage by 1/3 per +, thus completely negating draining at +++.
Torment takes 50% of your current hitpoints without rN, but this amount is reduced by 5% per +.

I can imagine that there can be balance reasons - fire and ice would still damage you some even +++ resist, so you have to still be on your toes against these elements.
On the other hand, draining is coming with a nasty side effect of draining XP, and having every hit putting you back to beginner levels might be too much. Mind you, this does not trivialise monsters with draining attacks, they usually are more than capable of beating the holy crap out of you even without draining.
On yet another hand, torment is mostly encountered in extended endgame, it's fairly rare to meet even in Zot. It is used as a hammer on full-win-going players, so they don't get too cocky and simply breeze through.

And of course I can be completely wrong - any of the devs would probably give a more correct answer.

Re: Why is rN+ different?

PostPosted: Wednesday, 22nd February 2012, 17:52
by rebthor
To echo what minmay is saying, poison was all or nothing and is now 90% of all or nothing.
rElec cuts damage to 33% of incoming
rMut cuts mutation chance to 10% of incoming polymorph other and 50% from glow.
rCorr gives rAcid+ which equals 50% damage reduction plus 90% chance of saving equipment
rAcid works like rF/rC in that if you get to 3 pips, you only take 20% damage IIRC (requires yellow drac) but doesn't give any equipment safety

Re: Why is rN+ different?

PostPosted: Thursday, 23rd February 2012, 02:53
by sardonica
rebthor wrote:To echo what minmay is saying, poison was all or nothing and is now 90% of all or nothing.
rElec cuts damage to 33% of incoming
rMut cuts mutation chance to 10% of incoming polymorph other and 50% from glow.
rCorr gives rAcid+ which equals 50% damage reduction plus 90% chance of saving equipment
rAcid works like rF/rC in that if you get to 3 pips, you only take 20% damage IIRC (requires yellow drac) but doesn't give any equipment safety


OK. So why not have damage listed like this for an electric attack : (33/22)

where 33 is the initial damage and 22 is the reduction. This would make the system more transparent and intuitive.

Re: Why is rN+ different?

PostPosted: Thursday, 23rd February 2012, 13:03
by Zicher
minmay wrote:Numbers are correct, although for rF and rC you obviously mean "to" instead of "by".

Zicher wrote:
BlackSheep wrote:Would you care to elaborate on that?


Here are the numbers: rF and rC both reduce damage by 50% at +, 33% at ++ and 20% at +++.
rN reduces damage by 1/3 per +, thus completely negating draining at +++.
Torment takes 50% of your current hitpoints without rN, but this amount is reduced by 5% per +.

I can imagine that there can be balance reasons - fire and ice would still damage you some even +++ resist, so you have to still be on your toes against these elements.
On the other hand, draining is coming with a nasty side effect of draining XP, and having every hit putting you back to beginner levels might be too much. Mind you, this does not trivialise monsters with draining attacks, they usually are more than capable of beating the holy crap out of you even without draining.
On yet another hand, torment is mostly encountered in extended endgame, it's fairly rare to meet even in Zot. It is used as a hammer on full-win-going players, so they don't get too cocky and simply breeze through.

And of course I can be completely wrong - any of the devs would probably give a more correct answer.
Correct from your side. Apologies from my side

Re: Why is rN+ different?

PostPosted: Thursday, 23rd February 2012, 16:14
by grisamentum
Dare I even bring up rPois?

Re: Why is rN+ different?

PostPosted: Sunday, 26th February 2012, 17:52
by Night2o1
It is plenty intuitive when you can put on a piece of resistance gear and see "Oh, I'm dying less" or "Oh, I'm not losing so much exp per drain". The exact % reduction is not at all needed. I've noticed a trend on these forums of people wanting to see every little % and damage number -- some of these forum dorks have apparently become developers ie: the new spell success descriptions -- when all you really accomplish by this is nerdifying the game and a serious reduction in immersion. If you want this information it is only a google away for the newbie (because the vet already knows to check the forum/knowledge bots).

Clearly crawl isn't Real Life but there is something to be said for not having every underlying mechanic of the universe in which you are operating given on a silver platter or shoved in your face. Part of the fun for the human brain is in deciphering the underlying mechanics. When someone who has a clue what they're talking about says, "A game should be intuitive" they are not saying it should, "List all of the %s and exact damage ranges for every action" but that the system should be coherent, that the way things work should make sense.

Please consider the subtle differences here. They are the difference between an immersive, fun game and an uninteresting, inaccessible grind of a game.

Re: Why is rN+ different?

PostPosted: Sunday, 26th February 2012, 18:13
by KoboldLord
To the OP, there's no reason rN+ should be similar to rC+ or rF+. Cold and fire damage kill you. Draining is vaguely annoying, in that it slows down your progress toward level 27. Strictly speaking, there's little reason to equip rN+ gear at all; I routinely take characters through Tartarus and Tomb with zero pips and don't even notice the draining. The potential to completely eliminate the drain helps keep it from being completely worthless.

Night2o1 wrote:I've noticed a trend on these forums of people wanting to see every little % and damage number -- some of these forum dorks have apparently become developers ie: the new spell success descriptions -- when all you really accomplish by this is nerdifying the game and a serious reduction in immersion. If you want this information it is only a google away for the newbie (because the vet already knows to check the forum/knowledge bots).


The one-word descriptors for spell success rates were mind-numbingly terrible. Most of them were flat-out lies. 'Good' was used to describe a spell with a 20% chance to miscast, which could flat-out KILL a given character if you rolled badly. Nor was it possible to repair the problem; an acceptable success rate for a rarely-used utility spell is very different than an acceptable success rate for a combat staple.

Regardless of your opinions on immersion, the old spell success descriptions were terrible and now they're not so bad.

Re: Why is rN+ different?

PostPosted: Monday, 27th February 2012, 16:23
by sardonica
It is plenty intuitive when you can put on a piece of resistance gear and see "Oh, I'm dying less" or "Oh, I'm not losing so much exp per drain". The exact % reduction is not at all needed. I've noticed a trend on these forums of people wanting to see every little % and damage number -- some of these forum dorks have apparently become developers ie: the new spell success descriptions -- when all you really accomplish by this is nerdifying the game and a serious reduction in immersion. If you want this information it is only a google away for the newbie (because the vet already knows to check the forum/knowledge bots).


Look, I know I'm a forum dork newbie, too stupid to use the knowledge bot. But man, if you're worried about immersion in a game with sentient octopus (octopi?) and zombie fish, and orcs that fire flame bolts out their arse, you need to chill. All I did was make a little suggestion about showing damage reduction. That's all. Not a huge deal.

Re: Why is rN+ different?

PostPosted: Monday, 27th February 2012, 18:48
by Night2o1
sardonica wrote:
It is plenty intuitive when you can put on a piece of resistance gear and see "Oh, I'm dying less" or "Oh, I'm not losing so much exp per drain". The exact % reduction is not at all needed. I've noticed a trend on these forums of people wanting to see every little % and damage number -- some of these forum dorks have apparently become developers ie: the new spell success descriptions -- when all you really accomplish by this is nerdifying the game and a serious reduction in immersion. If you want this information it is only a google away for the newbie (because the vet already knows to check the forum/knowledge bots).


Look, I know I'm a forum dork newbie, too stupid to use the knowledge bot. But man, if you're worried about immersion in a game with sentient octopus (octopi?) and zombie fish, and orcs that fire flame bolts out their arse, you need to chill. All I did was make a little suggestion about showing damage reduction. That's all. Not a huge deal.


Been easily annoyed lately, came off a little harsh there so I apologize for that. I stand by my point though:P

Re: Why is rN+ different?

PostPosted: Wednesday, 29th February 2012, 03:13
by Grimm
KoboldLord wrote:Strictly speaking, there's little reason to equip rN+ gear at all; I routinely take characters through Tartarus and Tomb with zero pips and don't even notice the draining.

How do you make it through Elf:5 and Vault:8 without noticing the draining?

Re: Why is rN+ different?

PostPosted: Wednesday, 29th February 2012, 03:21
by crate
Grimm wrote:
KoboldLord wrote:Strictly speaking, there's little reason to equip rN+ gear at all; I routinely take characters through Tartarus and Tomb with zero pips and don't even notice the draining.

How do you make it through Elf:5 and Vault:8 without noticing the draining?

It doesn't drain skill levels so unless you are a felid trying to level up to get an extra life it's not important.

Re: Why is rN+ different?

PostPosted: Wednesday, 29th February 2012, 12:05
by KoboldLord
Grimm wrote:How do you make it through Elf:5 and Vault:8 without noticing the draining?


If I'm playing a light-armor character, natural EV plus Repel Missiles eliminates a larger percentage of the draining than two pips of rN+ would. Bolt of Draining and shadow dragon breath are both affected by EV. Tartarus and Tomb have undodgeable draining effects, but by that point in the game I'm far enough into XL27 that I can't be drained below it again unless I'm intentionally farming Hell Effects for additional draining. For some reason.

Elf 5 and Vaults 8 are rougher on a heavy-armor character, but that only upgrades the issue to the level of being aesthetically displeasing. Being XL23 instead of XL26 is annoying, but since skill levels don't get drained I'm not actually meaningfully set back. If I was training fighting all through Vaults 8, I probably ended up with a net increase of hit points in spite of the fact that I'm one XL lower than I was before.

Re: Why is rN+ different?

PostPosted: Wednesday, 29th February 2012, 18:18
by Grimm
EV not AC, that explains it. With AC only, I've been regarding rN+++ as mandatory in those places.

Re: Why is rN+ different?

PostPosted: Wednesday, 29th February 2012, 21:42
by Grimm
It's not the damage, it's the downlevelling. An MDFi who does Elf with no rN can drop over 5-10 levels. I find that irritating.

Re: Why is rN+ different?

PostPosted: Wednesday, 29th February 2012, 22:11
by Grimm
It's eminently possible, or was the one or two times I entered Elf with no rN.

Re: Why is rN+ different?

PostPosted: Thursday, 1st March 2012, 02:00
by KoboldLord
Are you counting each time you see-saw up and down past the same level break as a separate level loss each time? Because I've run through Elf 5 and Vaults 8 with <5EV before, and even though that character picked up a lot of extra draining compared to my dodge monkeys it certainly didn't amount to five whole levels.

Re: Why is rN+ different?

PostPosted: Thursday, 1st March 2012, 02:14
by Grimm
No, I mean the net drop. This was a long time ago, like, the first time I ever did Elf successfully. I came out and I was down many levels. I got the stuffing drained out of me. I was not a very good player at that point.

Re: Why is rN+ different?

PostPosted: Friday, 1st June 2012, 20:07
by Grimm
Grimm wrote:An MDFi who does Elf with no rN can drop over 5-10 levels.

This made it into the "badforum" section of the bots. But by Christ it really happened to me.

Re: Why is rN+ different?

PostPosted: Saturday, 2nd June 2012, 05:43
by tasonir
I've managed to do vault 8 starting at 23 and coming out 22, and it really frustrated me, but it doesn't ruin the character. You'd think killing all the dragons would get you more exp than the draining, but with low ev and no rN+, you can lose exp.

But think about where you are in the game by that point - you're about to do either the last levels of the main dungeon (dragons) or zot (dragons) so you're going to hit 27 pretty soon. Draining can be a bit of a pain on 150+ exp per level races, but even then you'll be ok in the long run. Just don't run trolls through extended ;)

Re: Why is rN+ different?

PostPosted: Saturday, 2nd June 2012, 10:45
by Deimos
Grimm wrote:
Grimm wrote:An MDFi who does Elf with no rN can drop over 5-10 levels.

This made it into the "badforum" section of the bots. But by Christ it really happened to me.

You must have got a lot of drainers. I cleared Elf without losing any levels, but that was with a MiFi. Sorry to hear you got something into badforum D:

Re: Why is rN+ different?

PostPosted: Saturday, 2nd June 2012, 10:59
by Jabberwocky
It seems possible that one could drop that many levels with bad RNG and poor play.