Dodging aptitudes

[Strongpoint]

So, dodging by race ( i am to lazy to include all)

Spriggan +4
Merfolk +3 *
Felid +2
Elves +2\+1
Kobold +2 **
Halfling +2 ***
Minotaur +1
Ogre -1
Troll -2
Naga -2
Centaur -3 ****

* WHAT!? Humanoid fish is more dodgy than kobolds, elves and cats? Why merfolk in human form is that much better in dodging then humans? Make it 0. Merfolk can be nerfed

** I'd prefer +3, maybe i just play incursion to much, but for me kobolds are mainly hard to hit small bastards

*** What? Halfilngs as dodgy as elves and even better than high ones? Halflings are small humans and they are hard to hit because they are... small. Not because of their unnatural agility. +1\0 would be enough

**** Do centaurs deserve the worst dodging? Even worse than "never care about defense" trolls and slow Nagas? Horses are dodgy IRL and only easier to hit because of their size. Yes narrow corridors and horses don't mix nicely, but in open it's not easy to hit even unintelligent horse

[zasvid]

*** What? Halfilngs as dodgy as elves and even better than high ones? Halflings are small humans and they are hard to hit because they are... small. Not because of their unnatural agility. +1\0 would be enough

Well, in most fantasy settings Halflings are not only small, but also unnaturally agile (and usually make best thieves in fantasy games for this reason). Though I guess people don't associate dodging with this aspect all that much, so nerfing their dodging shouldn't be a problem. Also, making kobolds +3 at dodging and halflings +1/0 would differentiate them better and perhaps make room for a more interesting buff.

I also agree with your analysis on all other counts. Great suggestion IMHO.

[galehar]

I agree with reducing merfolk dodging aptitude. They are already overpowered, and it would help make their dodging bonus in water stand out.

[jackalKnight]

I want Felids to have a +3 dodge, cats have really good reflexes. Only the "supernatural" race (Spriggans) deserves higher.

[szanth]

I'm for subtracting one from Merfolk and giving one to Felids.

[Curio]

I agree with reducing merfolk dodging aptitude. They are already overpowered, and it would help make their dodging bonus in water stand out.

I won with merfolk first time in my life, therefore I love them so much, but I have to agree with this one - merfolk are too powerful - dodge is acceptable thing to take away from them. A bit

[Strongpoint]

OK, looks like merfolks will be nerfed ) What about centaurs? Only I feel that they really deserve better dodging?

[jackalKnight]

Centaurs have enough stacked against them with the high hunger and crap casting as it is...but horses don't really turn that well, for the most part.

What about just going to -1 dodge for centaurs? That way, they can still conceivably get dodge, just at a slower rate.

[dpeg]

Centaurs have the speed. I don't think they need a boost.

[danr]

I think someone did some stats a while ago and centaurs had among the lowest win rates, but I could be remembering wrong.

I haven't played them much since becoming a better player, so my memory is of them dying a lot. I thought they weren't fast enough (I think snakes can still keep up), the food was a big issue, and they woke up everything in the dungeon with their big loud hooves. Armour was another concern.

[MrMisterMonkey]

1) winrate isn't a good metric of anything, sorry to say. Centaurs actually have one of the highest winrates, too (right under felids and deep dwarves).
2) you're probably remembering that centaurs are the least played race (this is true online, ignoring removed races and the new felids)

[danr]

That's right, now that you mention it. I remember now being surprised that centaurs had a decent win rate.

I'm curious why you say winrate is not a good metric - because better players don't play the stronger races?

[evilmike]

Centaurs have the advantage of speed and HP, which lets them get through the early game without much trouble. This is the hardest and most dangerous part of the game, and means that they are a pretty easy race to win with. Combine this with the fact that it's mostly good players who choose centaurs, and you get a high win rate.

I'm not really sure why so few people play centaurs. Maybe it's because of the somewhat poor aptitudes, or the fast metabolism (which can get a bit annoying). In any case, they're a pretty strong race. One way to put it is this: if I ever deliberately go for another winning streak (maybe next tournament or something), I'd try to include a centaur in it along with the usual staples of spriggan, deep dwarf, merfolk and maybe felid. That is to say, in terms of winnability I'd put them in my top 5 races.

[galehar]

I'm curious why you say winrate is not a good metric - because better players don't play the stronger races?

Let me put it this way: deep elves have a worse win rate than ogres.

Yes, that's quite simple: beginners play strong combos and die a lot. Challenge races are mostly played be experienced players. So the win rate is almost backward with the actual difficulty of a race or combo.

[Twilight]

Why do so many people think centaurs suck? They're perfectly good casters and fighters, excellent archers, and get very good speed and HP.

I haven't really played many centaurs, but are you sure about them being good fighters and casters? Just from looking at the aptitudes:

Arm: -3
Ddg: -3
Shd: -3
If you're playing a dodging or heavy armor fighter, you're facing a -3 in your primary defensive aptitude either way, and -3 for shield use regardless.

For offense:
All melee weapons get -1. Unarmed and fighting get 0.

For spellcasters:
-1 to all spell schools, except for Poison, which gets -2.
The Spellcasting skill itself is also -2.


For Hunters, Centaurs should do really well, as you'd expect:
Slings and Crossbows get +1, and Throwing and Bows get +3

For a stabber type:
Sth: -4
Stb: -3
You're fighting a real uphill battle (Not that Centaurs are arguably designed for a stabbing playstyle, though, I agree.)

Aptitude wise, if you discount ranged weapons/throwing, the "highest" aptitudes Centaurs have are 0, and those are only in Fighting, Unarmed Combat, and Invocations. Everything else is a negative. Also the Centaur experience level aptitude is 140, so you won't really be gaining new levels very quickly, either.

Again, I haven't played them much (And certainly not in the past year or two), though I plan to start trying them now, and this is only from looking at the aptitudes, but Centaurs really look like they'd have an uphill battle with most backgrounds, and even the "good" ones are really more just slightly negative to average (-1 to 0). Obviously, Hunters, with the high ranged aptitudes would work, but that seems like an awfully narrow focus for them to excel at.

Are the HP bonuses they get substantial compared to other races, and is the speed really helpful enough to offset so many terrible aptitudes? This is not a rhetorical question, as I'm asking those who have much more experience with them.

Trolls have really bad aptitudes as well, but they also are very powerful for the first 5-10 levels or so, due to regeneration, large health, strength, etc. Are Centaurs similarly easy for the first while? Because it looks like their aptitudes would really torpedo their long term development in all but a *very* narrow focus.

Spriggans have increased speed as well (Same as Centaurs?), and (similar?) food issues as well, though more to not being able to eat meat or chunks, compared to Centaurs increased metabolism. However Spriggans have very strong aptitudes in Dodging, Stealth, Stabbing, (So somewhat viable for stabbing or dodging fighters), as well as strong aptitudes in Spellcasting and several schools of magic. Somewhat insultingly (For centaurs, anyway ), they also have strong aptitudes in ranged weapons.

Just seems somewhat inconsistent, or like Centaurs could use a bit of a tune-up or refocus somehow, instead of the current "Good speed and ranged weapons, otherwise pretty terrible at most things). Unless having that narrow of a focus is the idea.

As said before, though, this is all conjecture on my part while looking at the aptitudes. Centaur players, what have your experiences been?

[KoboldLord]

Fast movement speed is enormous. If you can outrun most things, you rarely need to burn consumables to survive difficult encounters, and the extra resources snowball throughout the game. Aptitudes, on the other hand, give you a rough time when you're just starting out but once you've hit the point of diminishing returns don't really matter all that much any more.

If you're playing a centaur caster, for instance, the mildly bad magic skill attributes mean that you'll lag a level or so behind when casting. This is cause for concern when your casting success rate for your basic spells is at a wretchedly bad level like 'good' and the human isn't, but once you've got it to 'excellent' your spells are every bit as good. The lower spell power might be as trivial as a hit point or two of damage on average, and maybe not even that if your spells are already at their damage caps. Upgrading to a new spell in the same school later is a simple matter of devoting a couple extra kills of victory dancing compared to the human.

[danr]

If the main perk of centaurs is speed, it makes sense to compare them to spriggans:

First, in the strengths / weaknesses they sort of share:
- Food - Ce has high metabolism but can eat meat. Sp has slow metabolism and can't eat meat. In my experience food is not a problem for spriggans other than making one more careful about using high-level spells or invocations / evocations
- Speed - Sp. is faster
- Armour - both are restricted to fewer slots. Centaurs have it better in this area though I think?
- Ranged combat - Ces have Bows 3, Sp. have bows 2

Now, for other things:
- Sp is dodgy, Ce is beefy
- Sp is great at spellcasting, and has some magic schools with strong aptitudes
- Sp is not as good at melee, and has less str.

[danr]

I'm not sure what you mean by fair.

The centaur's main advantage is speed. Fair or not it's just logical to compare it to the other species that one might play if speed was important to you, and armour is not.

[LunarHarp]

Don't forget that awesome extra kick attack centaurs can get when attacking in melee.

[vintermann]

This brings up a pet peeve of mine: How some races are rewarded and punished twice for size. People think halflings should have excellent dodging because they're small... it's just that they will have far better dodging than larger races already, because there's a direct size factor to calculating EV.

Centaurs are even hit three times in one area: Awful stealth apt - reasonable, right, since they are large and have hooves? However, both hooves and large size give direct penalties to stealth, so the combined effect is more like they had an apt of -9 or something.

Centaurs have a niche as the best missile users in the game, though, so in their case this foolishness doesn't matter as much as with ogres, the red-headed stepchild race of crawl.

[szanth]

I dunno. The root is that the aptitude should be the ability to gain greater proficiency in said skill. If there's a hidden aptitude, that's that much less transparency to the player, and more spoiler-leaning behavior in the game. On top of that, if an ogre is able to train to 27 with dodging with a -4 aptitude? He should be just as able to dodge as a halfling with 27, because good on him, he really really worked for that shit, y'know? He trained his ass off to overcome his handicap and is powerful because of it. Don't give a penalty to the skill, give a penalty to EV if you really want to. Or a boost to EV in regards to halflings. Whatever; something the player can see and respond to.

[TGW]

Note that Mf already lost its absurdly high racial HP.

[Tiber]

1. There isn't a hidden aptitude. There is a hidden size-based EV modifier. (Yes, I agree that hiding stuff is bad, but it is never going to stop.)
2. Do you think an ogre with dodging 0 should have the same EV as a halfling with dodging 0?

That's not quite the point. His point was that a size modifier and poor aptitude for large races is hitting the player twice for the same thing. And the game never tells you about the size modifier. I don't think this really needs to be hidden either. Just add to the mutation screen something like, "You are large, and easier to spot and hit."

[vintermann]

1. There isn't a hidden aptitude. There is a hidden size-based EV modifier. (Yes, I agree that hiding stuff is bad, but it is never going to stop.)
2. Do you think an ogre with dodging 0 should have the same EV as a halfling with dodging 0?

The problem is, unless it's been changed recently, the size-based EV modifier isn't just a fixed penalty, but a penalty to the EV you get from dodging skill. It's one thing (and OK) that large races have a worse base EV, but it's bad that they have even worse EV gain than their poor dodging aptitudes indicate.