GDR

[TwilightPhoenix]

Probably doesn't help that GDR is the least visible statistic that is important to survival. (or, at least, important to anyone using stuff heavier than robes).

[crate]

Probably doesn't help that GDR is the least visible statistic that is important to survival. (or, at least, important to anyone using stuff heavier than robes).

GDR is not important for survival.

[eeviac]

GDR is about as useful as SH. That is to say, AC/EV/HP/certain resists/speed/smart play are all several magnitudes more important to any players' survival.

[TwilightPhoenix]

GDR is not important for survival.

If you want to go that route, technically the only thing important for survival is good playing.

[pratamawirya]

If we (common players) are lucky, one of the blue squad will eventually explain exactly why GDR isn't crucial. Just be patient.

[KoboldLord]

GDR is a moderate-impact multiplier for your aggregate defense, but it's just one entry on a long list of other such multipliers. You don't actually have any meaningful control over it; unlike for example fire resistance vs. cold resistance you don't get to change just your GDR and leave everything else exactly the same. It's a nice perk that applies to most high-AC build, but high-AC would still be high-AC if GDR wasn't applied. GDR is much less important for your body armor choice than the penalty to evasion or spellcasting is.

Ultimately, it comes down to an issue of semantics. The bonus is a good thing, but since you don't get to fine-tune it there's no point in worrying about it. You can survive just fine in robes with no GDR to speak of. You can survive just fine in super-heavy crystal plate or golden dragon scale with high GDR. You can survive just fine in medium dragon armour with moderate GDR. If you wanted to adjust your GDR from zero to the maximum, doing so will require cost-prohibitive reskilling plus some exceptional luck on item drops so you probably shouldn't do that.

[crate]

Basically GDR is just like a (usually very small) additional amount of AC. The only thing it really does in practice that might be useful and different from AC is that it lowers the max damage from some enemies so if you are for instance standing next to a stone giant at 40 hp maybe you can't get killed in one turn if you have GDR.

[eeviac]

Note that GDR only applies to physical melee attacks; it does exactly nothing against large rock/bolt/arrow/magic/breath hail that makes up so much of the damage dealt to you over the course of a game. Which means that GDR only ever matters when you're continuously tanking hard hitting dudes, i.e. playing bad. If you carefully manage your engagements you can tab the whole game in a robe, saving all that XP that would be spent on armour skill to be used elsewhere.

[bobross419]

Note that GDR only applies to physical melee attacks; it does exactly nothing against large rock/bolt/arrow/magic/breath hail that makes up so much of the damage dealt to you over the course of a game. Which means that GDR only ever matters when you're continuously tanking hard hitting dudes, i.e. playing bad. If you carefully manage your engagements you can tab the whole game in a robe, saving all that XP that would be spent on armour skill to be used elsewhere.

I think a lot of you forget that a character with high AC/EV/SH and full resists will take less damage than a character with none of these. While no one defensive stat might be necessary if you don't "play bad", the inclusion of these stats increases your margin for error and allows you to play sub-optimally (I'm sure I'm not alone in the feeling that optimal play = boring play). Quite frankly, dismissing any one defensive stat as giving trivial (which is a phrase that gets thrown around way too much) benefits is detrimental to the newer/less experienced players that this advice should be going towards. Can you survive without xxx defensive stat? Yes. Should you give advice saying to not worry about it to another player that is still getting his feet wet? No. Part of the learning process involves having that extra margin of error in place and getting a feel for when something isn't necessary.

[sardonica]

Note that GDR only applies to physical melee attacks; it does exactly nothing against large rock/bolt/arrow/magic/breath hail that makes up so much of the damage dealt to you over the course of a game. Which means that GDR only ever matters when you're continuously tanking hard hitting dudes, i.e. playing bad. If you carefully manage your engagements you can tab the whole game in a robe, saving all that XP that would be spent on armour skill to be used elsewhere.

I think a lot of you forget that a character with high AC/EV/SH and full resists will take less damage than a character with none of these. While no one defensive stat might be necessary if you don't "play bad", the inclusion of these stats increases your margin for error and allows you to play sub-optimally (I'm sure I'm not alone in the feeling that optimal play = boring play). Quite frankly, dismissing any one defensive stat as giving trivial (which is a phrase that gets thrown around way too much) benefits is detrimental to the newer/less experienced players that this advice should be going towards. Can you survive without xxx defensive stat? Yes. Should you give advice saying to not worry about it to another player that is still getting his feet wet? No. Part of the learning process involves having that extra margin of error in place and getting a feel for when something isn't necessary.

Right now the effect that GDR has is indeed trivial, because 1) you can't really adjust it much without massive reskilling and 2) the ability to cast spells / a couple more evade points / resistances are far more important than changes to GDR

[bobross419]

Note that GDR only applies to physical melee attacks; it does exactly nothing against large rock/bolt/arrow/magic/breath hail that makes up so much of the damage dealt to you over the course of a game. Which means that GDR only ever matters when you're continuously tanking hard hitting dudes, i.e. playing bad. If you carefully manage your engagements you can tab the whole game in a robe, saving all that XP that would be spent on armour skill to be used elsewhere.

Must've just been playing horribly when I broke the Vault:8 entrance committee without stairdancing, Alistair's, Blinking down a side path, etc. Did I mention I took about 30 damage the whole time? Also Boris, a few Taurs, 3 or 4 Stone Giants, a Frost Giant, a couple Shapeshifters joined the vault guards. Maybe it was the GDR... Maybe it was the 78 AC and 56 SH lol.. god knows the 10 EV didn't do much for me. By letting the Vault Guards beat on me I was able to 'v' my dTrident into the guys that might actually do something.... yep, that's some crappy play right there.

Also... By moving right up to a large rock thrower and (cross)bowyer they'll switch to melee! Holy crap, what a horrible tactic to avoid the attacks "that make up so much of the damage dealt to you over the course of a game". And what happens when they hit you with melee? That's right... GDR. I don't know if it makes magic/breath users more likely to use melee instead, but every turn they're bouncing some puny little weapon off you they aren't hitting you with something that one of your resists can effect.

[KoboldLord]

I'm not quite clear on why there's so much vitriol on the topic of GDR. I know everyone has a stake in being 'right', and none of us can bear to walk away when there's somebody who is Wrong on the Internet, but there's absolutely no question worth worrying about here. GDR is pretty much linearly related to AC from body armor, which is going to be by far the largest contributor to total AC for any heavy armor character. If you maximize AC, GDR follows whether you're thinking about it or not.

Outside of wizmode, I don't think any player has ever had to make a significant choice between +X AC and +YZ% GDR in the entire history of the game. You get both of those things as a package, and your sacrifice that you trade away is some amount of EV and spellcasting.

[dpeg]

GDR was always in the game (read: before DC*SS*) and, if I understand correctly, always negligible. The latest armour reform tried to rectify this. And the idea was not to make GDR into an additional parameter (the player can tweak, like EV or SH), but rather to help high AC builds. It is up to discussion whether (a) that is a good intention and (b) the execution was successful. In any case it we thought that GDR should be either made meaningful (non-negligible at high ACs) or thrown out.

[dpeg]

Yes, it is not the most interesting mechanic. And is very capable of confusing players, as we see all the time.

Coming up with the thing is very natural -- I wouldn't be surprised if Linley got it from some pen and paper RPG: you want to make sure that heavy armour always does *something* against incoming damage, thus reducing variance a bit.

[bobross419]

Yes, it is not the most interesting mechanic. And is very capable of confusing players, as we see all the time.

Coming up with the thing is very natural -- I wouldn't be surprised if Linley got it from some pen and paper RPG: you want to make sure that heavy armour always does *something* against incoming damage, thus reducing variance a bit.

I don't see whats so confusing about this.

[KoboldLord]

It shouldn't really be a surprise that players think of the mechanic as confusing. Humans are notoriously bad at intuitively calculating probabilities. Heck, if you polled the players in online games and asked them to explain how AC works to the best of their understanding, I'm betting you would find that at least half of them are basically believing in AC as a voodoo charm against monsters.

[evilmike]

GDR is not insignificant. When people say things like that, it is in response to the players who overestimate its usefulness. The fact is that it's something more in between. Less useful than the AC itself, but still useful. The problem, if there is one, is just in the way players read the information. People see "40%" and assume some huge reduction, because they misunderstand what that 40% applies to.

I personally have no problem with the GDR mechanic in Crawl. I like that it reduces the maximum possible damage I can take (somewhat limiting "damage spikes" in combat) and I like that it makes heavy armour slightly more effective in melee (since GDR is just a melee thing).

[eeviac]

I'd like to see GDR removed in favor of making AC rolls slightly more reliable, but there's no way this hasn't been thought of before, so there must be some downside that I'm not seeing.

[evilmike]

I'd like to see GDR removed in favor of making AC rolls slightly more reliable, but there's no way this hasn't been thought of before, so there must be some downside that I'm not seeing.

That would be a big change, and pretty unnecessary.

I'm sure someone will disagree with me, but I think crawl's AC system is fine, and I don't believe in fixing what isn't broken. Some of the game mechanics are obtuse, but that does not justify making (potentially) large balance-affecting changes. I'd rather have an inelegant but working (from a gameplay perspective) system than a simpler and untested one.

[sardonica]

I had tried to start a discussion about changes to GDR and AC to distinguish different kinds of armors, but it didn't go anywhere. Now, Im convinced that it's really not worth it.

Also shouldn't this GDR discussion be split off this thread n put in design forum

[smock]

FWIW, I just tested a +4 scale mail (28% gdr) and a +0 pearl dragon armour (39% gdr) versus a stone giant in wizmode, so AC was 10. There was no detectable difference in damage received. I then tested a +3 leather armour (14% gdr) and a +0 mottled dragon armour (28% gdr) versus a stone giant. AC was 6. There was no detectable difference in damage received.

Adding a buckler, shield or large shield with sufficient shield skill to offset the EV penalty didn't reduce damage at all either. Even SH 50 didn't reduce damage.

It seems that GDR is totally worthless. Likewise, shields appear to be totally useless against melee attacks. Did I do the tests wrong or something?

[danharaj]

You realize GDR only works up to total AC/2 damage right?

[pratamawirya]

Likewise, shields appear to be totally useless against melee attacks.

This is really strange. Of course SH would let you block melee attacks.

[mikee]

You realize GDR only works up to total AC/2 damage right?

Maybe someone has a link they could provide that explains how it works. Does anyone have one?

[n1000]

You realize GDR only works up to total AC/2 damage right?

Maybe someone has a link they could provide that explains how it works. Does anyone have one?

Lemme try to dig one up...

ok here: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5044&p=67530#p67530

[galehar]

I'm sure someone will disagree with me, but I think crawl's AC system is fine, and I don't believe in fixing what isn't broken.

+1 to that. And it wasn't easy to balance heavy armour. For reference, elliptic came up with the GDR formula.

Since we're satisfied with the balance you can be sure that suggestions like "it should be removed and AC rebalanced somehow" are guaranteed to be ignored. If you really believe you can improve the AC system, you'd have to provide formulae backed up by charts or statistics to get our attention. it would be better to invest this time on things that actually need improvements though. Maybe armour and shields penalties, and how they are affected by skills?

As for clarity, explaining the inner workings of GDR would trick players into thinking that they have to understand it. The only thing they need to know is that heavy armour is more efficient in melee, so let's just add that to the manual.

It seems that GDR is totally worthless.

Or your testing method is. Try it with realistic AC values.

[smock]

I was assuming that DGR works for up to half of the body armour's AC.

With AC of 18, average damage wearing mottled dragon armour was 9.3 while average damage wearing leather armour was 9.9.

GDR is not totally worthless: 28% GDR at 18 AC is about equivalent to 14% GDR at 20 AC.

[TwilightPhoenix]

Well, the moment a player realizes GDR exists, they suddenly think they'll need to understand it then and wonder why it's mentioned nowhere. Clarifying it a little bit could be quite simple without doing a whole lot. For example, in body armor descriptions, there could be a line that says "This armor is guaranteed to stop at least no/a tiny/a small/a moderate/a large/a huge amount of damage in melee."

Also when mods split topics and move chunks to entirely different forums, can they at least leave some indication that they did somewhere? When I saw this topic in game design discussion I was thinking "When the heck did I make this topic?"

[cerebovssquire]

Well, the moment a player realizes GDR exists, they suddenly think they'll need to understand it then and wonder why it's mentioned nowhere. Clarifying it a little bit could be quite simple without doing a whole lot. For example, in body armor descriptions, there could be a line that says "This armor is guaranteed to stop at least no/a tiny/a small/a moderate/a large/a huge amount of damage in melee."

Except it's not that simple, because the formula doesn't use the armour's base AC or the armour's total AC, but your total AC. Therefore you can't say "this armour stops x amount in melee", because the correct version is "with your current AC, etc. As I understand the formula, a player at low armour skill with +0 plate armour and gloves, cloak, boots etc. at +3 would be "guaranteed to stop" more damage than a player with +0 CPA and gloves, cloak and boots at -3.

GDR does not need to be to told to anyone. A heavy armour character will get more and more GDR even though the player's goal is (and should be) getting more and more AC. It's not an independent stat, but in every case comes with a different important and visible stat.

If a player is willing to spoil himself to the point of knowing that GDR exists, he might as well look the formula up. An unspoiled player won't know anything about it. If you want to put an irrelevant formula into the ingame documentation, better be consistent about it and put in every irrelevant formula instead of cherrypicking some at random - which would, of course, clog ingame documentation up and make it bascially unusable.

[bobross419]

My above comments don't really fit with the Game Design split here. I was talking more about from a game play perspective.

As far as game design is concerned I'm happy with GDR the way it is.

[TwilightPhoenix]

I wouldn't call pointing it out useless or irrelevant at all. There's players who think that equipping rings of protection with a mace of protection provides the same damage mitigation has body armor with the same AC value (whatever they end up achieving). It doesn't. The idea I came up to indicate it may not be ideal, but it beats it being the mysterious thing that's about as well understood as ranged combat.

[cerebovssquire]

Actually, while GDR may not be irrelevant, pointing it out definitely is. Let's consider a player who wears a ring of protection while wearing a robe. Exactly the same type of AC, no need to inform him. Let's consider a player who wears a ring of protection while wearing heavier armour. He doesn't increase his GDR percentage-wise, but he increases the value of damage reduction he is guaranteed to get, because of the AC/2 reduction restriction. He makes his GDR more effective, in a similar way to upgrading scale mail to plate armour.

So as I said before, GDR and AC are directly linked and increasing one will always increase the other (as long as you're not in a robe, in which case it's even less important to inform the player of their 0% GDR).

that's about as well understood as ranged combat.

I understand the formula, and so do multiple others in this thread. The only person on this planet who understands ranged combat is CommanderC.