Penetrating Large Rocks

[XuaXua]

While I understand and agree with adding penetration to large rocks, it is almost too powerful, and I suggest an alteration. Unlike javelins and bolts, large rock penetration should be diminishing.

For each target damaged by a large rock, there should be a (25?)% base chance the large rock does not continue to the next target. This chance can be adjusted by the size of the target hit, and possibly adjusted by either strength or throwing skill.

[Amnesiac]

Wait, wait, wait, I haven't even tried them out yet.

[Igxfl]

I'd be willing to ignore the inconsistency just to help Ogres out a little.

[eeviac]

off topic:
I've never understood this 'Og are weak' paradigm. They have extra HP and easy access to the biggest weapon in the game. Play careful until you get your GSC online and some dragon armour, then pound dudes into dust. They're one of the most straightforward races to win with.

on topic:
This is another nerf to pure summoners, since your dudes can't hit stone giants without them being in LOS, and if stone giants are in LOS they can peg you with rocks all day. Whether this is a good or bad thing depends on your opinion of summoning in its current state.

[ackack]

I think making large rocks penetrating is largely inconsequential for monsters. The only exception is what eeviac says about being able to rip through summons with ease. I don't see that being a particularly big problem, though. However, penetrating large rocks is a very considerable buff to player Tr and Og (and I guess Fo, too). I don't think that Tr and Og need access to what is basically an unlimited moderate power bolt spell for minimal skill investment.

[XuaXua]

That is exactly it, ackack. By making large rock penetrating, which is good in concept, it's made them OP for player usage. To mitigate the power while still maintaining the potential for penetration, I suggest a version of the system in the OP.

I don't want to see large rock penetration disappear now that it is here, but I do think some restraint is in order.

[XuaXua]

Then you have nothing to add to the conversation from the player perspective.

[ackack]

I'm not convinced the change made them significantly stronger in the first place. I personally am not in the habit of having several dangerous monsters on the screen at once.

They are good for situations where you have monsters that aren't individually dangerous but are dangerous because there are five or six of them (yaks or death yaks, ugly things at various points). They are also good when you have one dangerous thing, especially a caster that you want to neutralize, behind a wall of non dangerous things.

[XuaXua]

They work well at taking down oklobs behind plants.

[pubby]

I would be fine if large rocks kept travelling if they killed an enemy, but to have them penetrate every time seems rather silly and overpowered.

[dpeg]

Alright, so the large rocks are a bit stronger now. 0.14 is far away, so I suggest we all play some ogres to see if they've suddenly turned from the pitiful underpower player species to the most overpowered murder machine.

If a nerf is in order, I'd suggest increased mulching rate. This affects monster rock throwing little, and player rocks quite a bit.

[Volteccer_Jack]

While I understand and agree with adding penetration to large rocks

I don't.

I don't recall any sentiment that large rocks needed to be buffed, but maybe I missed something?

[dpeg]

Do we have to petition the tavern before making changes now?

[Sandman25]

If a nerf is in order, I'd suggest increased mulching rate. This affects monster rock throwing little, and player rocks quite a bit.

Do we want to encourage stashing large rocks?
I like pubby's idea, it is fun and can make player try to kill a wounded monster with large rocks.

[XuaXua]

If a nerf is in order, I'd suggest increased mulching rate.

My proposal was an attempt to avoid the obvious neuter of increased mulch rate, which you'll note I don't even mention till now. An increased mulching rate combined with the existing inability to carry a large quantity creates the potential for more backtracking to locate large rocks (EDIT: or as Sandman points out, "stashing").

To me, bolts and javelins penetrating (without degradation) are fine because (1) it's not on all of them, it's a brand that must be found and (2) conceptually those are items that go "through" things. For large rocks to penetrate multiple targets all the time seems silly, which is why I went with a potentially diminishing proposal.

I've been using Troll Hunters exclusively for the last few days and large rocks going through 5 gnolls has felt outright abusive. Going through POTENTIALLY 5 feels like I have a proper restraint.

I don't recall any sentiment that large rocks needed to be buffed, but maybe I missed something?

I meant I understand the rationale; it makes Large rocks much more dangerous to be a player against them, and it's a big buff for the player who can use them. Unfortunately for the concept, FULL penetration is too big a buff (for those of us who go after more than one monster on a screen at a time).

[Amnesiac]

If a nerf is in order, I'd suggest increased mulching rate. This affects monster rock throwing little, and player rocks quite a bit.

Do we want to encourage stashing large rocks?
I like pubby's idea, it is fun and can make player try to kill a wounded monster with large rocks.

^this^. even strongest Ogres, that only gain Str can carry like 5-7 rocks(you could probably fit 9 with some tedious inventory management). increasing mulching rate will lead to running to rock stashes all the time. In fact, I would even prefer them to not mulch at all, because the current rate doesn't do much(fortunately) apart from some minor annoyance, like when you suddenly have 4 rocks instead of 5. If you increase their mulching rate, then at least decrease their weight proportionally.

[XuaXua]

I would be fine if large rocks kept travelling if they killed an enemy, but to have them penetrate every time seems rather silly and overpowered.

I can see the first target not getting killed, but hit and "bowled over" (especially considering small targets like rats and imps), then the rock continuing to a subsequent target(s), but I am of the mind that going through all monsters all the time seems odd.

[Amnesiac]

At least this shouldn't be a chance to fail penetration, but rather just make them work like bolt spells, otherwise they would be unpleasantly unreliable.

[XuaXua]

At least this shouldn't be a chance to fail penetration, but rather just make them work like bolt spells, otherwise they would be unpleasantly unreliable.

Please elaborate.

The "25"% chance of "penetrating" past each target was an arbitrary value I pulled out of my butt. It could be a completely generated value; I just picked 25 as a base.

You are guaranteed to have the throw go after the first monster in the target range, so you do get that assurance.
If it misses, it "penetrates" past (if you didn't hit ".").
If it hits, it's a % chance of it not going past.
Throwing skill reduces the chance of failure.
Small size reduces the chance of failure.
Large size increases the chance of failure.
Lord size (assuming there is such a thing) increase the chance of failure greatly.

This proposal makes no change to those who are only going after a single target.

[Amnesiac]

well, if I see an orc priest behind some other orcs and want him dead asap I want to know how to reliably and quickly deliver my rock to him. If it will work like bolt spell I will know how many steps to take, how many orcs a rock can penetrate, this is the way crawl usually works, it shouldn't be up to luck.

[XuaXua]

well, if I see an orc priest behind some other orcs and want him dead asap I want to know how to reliably and quickly deliver my rock to him. If it will work like bolt spell I will know how many steps to take, how many orcs a rock can penetrate, this is the way crawl usually works, it shouldn't be up to luck.

There's always the chance you'll miss or he'll resist the damage. Those are hard, pre-defined answers assured to you before the throw, then?

[Volteccer_Jack]

So you delete the pointless bile posted by me, but not the pointless bile posted by dpeg? You guys are a real piece of work.

I don't recall any sentiment that large rocks needed to be buffed, but maybe I missed something?

I meant I understand the rationale; it makes Large rocks much more dangerous to be a player against them, and it's a big buff for the player who can use them. Unfortunately for the concept, FULL penetration is too big a buff (for those of us who go after more than one monster on a screen at a time).

Only two monsters that I am aware of throw large rocks, and they are only more dangerous to a specific set of options (summoning). Throwing large rocks is already by far the scariest thing those monsters do, and I don't see why it needed to be buffed. For the player it is a significant buff to give one of the best ammo brands universally to large rocks. I don't think it's really overpowered, but then I also didn't think large rocks were underpowered to start with, so I'm kind of at a loss. As far as I can tell, they were fine before and they are fine now; but apparently I am alone in that opinion, which is why I asked that question.

[and into]

Do we have to petition the tavern before making changes now?

Certainly not. But it does appear that the tavern will petition the dev team after any change is made...

I agree with some of the other posters that upping mulch rate would not be best way to handle a nerf, if it is deemed necessary. I assume this was done to try to differentiate large rocks further, as they generally cannot get brands. Large rocks were plenty strong before, but I don't think they would be extremely overpowered penetrating, either.

Alternate way to balance them out is to take the other GDD thread about throwing to heart: Make throwing skill matter [edit: more] for large rocks, in terms of damage. At high levels you can get more damage than currently, but at lower levels you get less than you currently get at low levels. That's an idea.

Another: Penetration can be made slightly random based on damage vs. HD, with actual numbers modified in some way (not necessarily just straight up "dDamage" vs "dHD"). Kind of treat it like trample. You don't have to kill the creature, but if the "force" of the impact from your throw is greater than the overall toughness, the large rock is very likely (though not guaranteed) to penetrate through, hitting next in line and re-rolling.

[XuaXua]

Do we have to petition the tavern before making changes now?

Certainly not. But it does appear that the tavern will petition the dev team after any change is made...

I would consider that to be beta testing feedback.

[dpeg]

XuaXua: You may do that; for me this is more like hyperventilation mixed with hysteria. There are very many ways to potentially nerf the rocks, including increasing their weight, reducing their damage, skill/strength effect on accuracy/damage/penetration range, mulching, and certainly others.

Threads like this are --to me-- proof that it's good actual design discussions take place somewhere else. The tavern is good to bring up ideas; it generally fails at evaluating things. When I said that mulching would be a nerf candidate, I meant it exactly as vaguely as I said it. Some of you immediately seemed to imply "dpeg wants to double mulch rate!!!", or at least it read that way. If you tell me that increasing mulch rate by 10%, say, leads to "tedious inventory management", I have a hard time interpreting that as "beta testing feedback".

[dpeg]

Do we have to petition the tavern before making changes now?

Certainly not. But it does appear that the tavern will petition the dev team after any change is made...

There are a number of developers who don't read this forum (let alone comment) on the grounds that it's mostly rubbish talk over here. I absolutely disagree with this opinion (as you can see from me reading and writing this ) but it's not at all like we would have to meticulously defend every little change to the forum public, possibly with hat in hand.

[Amnesiac]

There's always the chance you'll miss or he'll resist the damage. Those are hard, pre-defined answers assured to you before the throw, then?

there is, but you at least have some controll over it, because you can train throwing, which will increase your accuracy and damage, on the other hand you can't do anything about fixed chance. At least the chance should depend on your str, damage and/or skill.

XuaXua: You may do that; for me this is more like hyperventilation mixed with hysteria. There are very many ways to potentially nerf the rocks, including increasing their weight, reducing their damage, skill/strength effect on accuracy/damage/penetration range, mulching, and certainly others.

Threads like this are --to me-- proof that it's good actual design discussions take place somewhere else. The tavern is good to bring up ideas; it generally fails at evaluating things. When I said that mulching would be a nerf candidate, I meant it exactly as vaguely as I said it. Some of you immediately seemed to imply "dpeg wants to double mulch rate!!!", or at least it read that way. If you tell me that increasing mulch rate by 10%, say, leads to "tedious inventory management", I have a hard time interpreting that as "beta testing feedback".

I think you are exaggerating. You just said that mulching could be increased for rocks and I(and some other members) said that I don't think that that's a good idea and provided some reasons why I think that way. Simple as that. Looks like a pretty normal game design discussion.

[pubby]

but it's not at all like we would have to meticulously defend every little change to the forum public, possibly with hat in hand.

I doubt any of these threads would exist if we knew the rationale behind changes the devs made. It's really not too much to ask.

[sanka]

dpeg: I think you take the tone of some comments a little bit too seriously. People tend to differ how they express themselves. I suggest try to read the arguments, and answer only those, ignoring the tone. It's better to avoid building up the spiral.

I try to summarize the points, in a neutral tone if possible, to get back to the topic.

1. Penetration is a huge buff to large rocks for players.
* It's not so huge, because to use it you need to fight more then one monster in LOS, which is almost always suboptimal. It certainly *feels* strong tough, a little bit like the new axe mechanic feels really strong sometimes, but I think this is just illusion.
2. Penetration is a buff for Stone Giants and Cyclops against player summoners.
* Who cares. It's not a problem. In fact that's a good thing (I guess this was the motivation.)
3. Ogres were weak, they will be stronger.
* They were not weak, they were one of the strongest species.
* Trolls are maybe even stronger, and it's a buff for them too.
4. Increasing mulch rate can balance the buff.
* Mulch rate is already accomplish nothing, just plain annoying. Increasing it would increase annoyance, but not decrease the power of the rocks.
5. Make damage more dependent at skill to balance the buff.
* I think this proposal may worth a try. One of the strongest feature of large rocks now is that they require (almost) no skill investment, so every troll and ogre would want to use them.

[Amnesiac]

they require (almost) no skill investment, so every troll and ogre would want to use them.

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=9417
read sandman's posts

* They were not weak, they were one of the strongest species.

My impression is that they are soft like butter after you leave it on the table for an hour. Not being able to wear all those nice plate armours, boots, helms and gloves make huge difference in the beginning.

[sanka]

Large rocks are extremely good with about 5 skills of throwing. They do not *require* large skill investment. That's partially because strength matter a lot for them, and the two race which can use them will have high.

Ogres may not have very good defense, but they have +30% HP, easy early access to the strongest melee weapon in the game with +3 aptitude. That's more than enough.

[galehar]

but it's not at all like we would have to meticulously defend every little change to the forum public, possibly with hat in hand.

I doubt any of these threads would exist if we knew the rationale behind changes the devs made. It's really not too much to ask.

How about you read the commit messages?

  Code:

commit 02ff1875cfc357c5f47c284aff75f85bb861850a
Author: Brendan Hickey <brendan@bhickey.net>
Date:   Sat Sep 14 12:41:58 2013 -0700


    Make Large Rocks penetrating

    Silently brand all large rocks as penetrating.
    This is mostly a buff to Stone Giants and Cyclopses.
    I considered accompanying this change with a reduction to damage,
    but I'm ambivalent on that.

As you can see, the main point was to buff monsters, not players. And the considered nerf is damage, not mulch rate. A lot of this pointless discussion could have been avoided if you guys took the time to read the commit message instead of making wrong assumptions on the reasons of the change.

[Amnesiac]

I don't mind this change(on the contrary, I like it), but as I don't use summons, for me it looks like a buff for ogres and trolls only. Also, while monsters usually need to target and kill only the player, the player needs to kill a lot of monsters, so again it's more of a buff for players rather than for monsters.

[sanka]

Galehar: I do not think that the discussion is more pointless than any other here.

The point was that the buff for large rocks, which intended to buff Stone Giants and Cyclopses, only buffed these enemies against certain builds, while giving a big buff of the large player races, making them overpowered.

I do not agree with the former assumption, but it's worth discussing as well as any other thing.

[sanka]

My point is, that it's more productive to focus on the arguments (and yes, there are arguments) ignoring the noise, which leads to personal insults and metatalk.

Hey what am I doing here...

[ackack]

As you can see, the main point was to buff monsters, not players. And the considered nerf is damage, not mulch rate. A lot of this pointless discussion could have been avoided if you guys took the time to read the commit message instead of making wrong assumptions on the reasons of the change.

In fact, the commit message is to me the most important reason to have the discussion. It illustrates that the chief effect of the change was something that wasn't intended --- a mostly insignificant monster buff combined with a noticeable player Tr/Og buff. I just finished a Tr that used penetrating large rocks to great effect, so that last part isn't idle speculation.

Further, in this very thread mulch rate actually was tossed out by dpeg ("If a nerf is in order, I'd suggest increased mulching rate.") as a possibility for nerfing, so getting on people for treating that as a plausible option that deserves rejection (and the stashing argument is a good one) is just dumb.

[XuaXua]

Considering that monsters have been known to attack through their own allies to hit a target, while I have yet to experience it, I wonder if Stone Giants will be throwing through their allies to hit the player.

[galehar]

It illustrates that the chief effect of the change was something that wasn't intended --- a mostly insignificant monster buff combined with a noticeable player Tr/Og buff.

Alright, this is interesting. Anyone else feels like this penetrating large rock change is insignificant to monsters and noticealbe to player large races?

[minstrel]

...There are very many ways to potentially nerf the rocks, including...skill/strength effect on accuracy/damage/penetration range, mulching, and certainly others.

I'm playing a troll right now, and am enjoying the new large rocks. The old ones felt tedious. You ended up playing as a sniper, drawing out one enemy at a time and pulling it back so you could kill it and collect your rocks for the next one. This is unthematic for the two big bruiser races who can actually use them, Ogres and Trolls.

I think the suggestion of skill/strength affecting either total range or penetration range would be more appropriate. At low levels, it would let you take out a couple enemies at most. By the time you can throw them reliably to full range and/or full penetration, you're high level and would be reliably nuking things just as effectively if you were a caster.

[Lasty]

I think this is a small buff to two strong races, and a small buff to two monsters against certain player skills and items. In both cases, it seems fine to me as-is, and I doubt it will significantly change the balance of the game for anyone.

For those who want the penetrating aspect to be unreliable, consider that large rocks already sometimes stop short of full range.

For everyone who has strong feelings on one side of this or the other, ask yourselves: is this really a significant change to anything, much less a significantly negative change? If you really can't accept how this affects Troll and Ogre players, you can choose to use . to prevent your own rocks from penetrating.

[Sandman25]

If you really can't accept how this affects Troll and Ogre players, you can choose to use . to prevent your own rocks from penetrating.

''." will not help. Before the change you threw a large rock and it could hurt second monster if it missed first one.
Personally I don't care much about balance, we have very easy and very hard species any way. I do care about increased backtracking for large rocks though.

[dpeg]

sanka: Many thanks for the nice list! We definitely do appreciate feedback, and everyone will agree (starting with Brendan, whose idea and code this is) that a nerf will come when appropriate. But the change is in for a few days, and 0.14 is months away!

I agree with Lasty that this change is actually quite small, and I apologise for having brought up my own pet idea of what a nerf could be (not because I reaily agree it is the worst idea of the lot but because it was as premature as this thread). I didn't talk with Brendan about this, but I could imagine he did this change because it is (a) cool, (b) serves to distinguish the throwing items a bit, (c) makes summon shields useless againts giants and cyclops. As you can see from the commit message, buffing ogres and trolls was not the point. By the way, I don't think that using rocks on a troll or ogre is in any way more "urgent" now than it was before: it used to be a strong and cheap ranged option, and it still is.

[XuaXua]

I started the thread.

I simply found that the game was a lot easier with penetrating large rocks for my troll when going up against packs of, say Death Yaks in a line, or Hydra hiding behind rats, than it used to be. I felt this was too much of an advantage, and the initial proposal was an attempt to nerf it while still maintaining the status quo for those who do not take advantage of the penetrating effect.

If you really can't accept how this affects Troll and Ogre players, you can choose to use . to prevent your own rocks from penetrating.

''." will not help.

Yes it will; maybe you don't know what '.' does. If you aim to a square and press ".", the missile you launch will not pass beyond that square.

[galehar]

I simply found that the game was a lot easier with penetrating large rocks for my troll when going up against packs of, say Death Yaks in a line, or Hydra hiding behind rats, than it used to be.

I didn't notice that death yaks were lining up or that hydras spawned with a rat band. This changes everthing.

[Sandman25]

Yes it will; maybe you don't know what '.' does. If you aim to a square and press ".", the missile you launch will not pass beyond that square.

I know what '.' does. Consider this example:
You are in corridor and there are 2 monsters, each has 20% to be hit by large rock. In old crawl you could throw a rock and experience the following results:
1) 20% - only first enemy is hit
2) 16% (0.8*0.2) - only second enemy is hit
3) 64% - no enemy is hit.

In new crawl you have
1) 4% (0.2*0.2) - both enemies are hit
2) 16% (0.2*0.8) - only first enemy is hit
3) 16% (0.8*0.2) - only second enemy is hit
4) 64% - no enemy is hit

In new crawl with '.' at first enemy:
1) 20% - only first enemy is hit
2) 80% - no enemy is hit.

You have almost half a chance to hit an enemy comparing with #1 (20% instead of 36%).

For more enemies it gets even worse - you lose chance to hurt all of them except first one.
If you are throwing a rock at 5 monsters and every monster has 20% chance to be hit, you had more than 63% to hit one of them, with '.' you have only 20%.

[Sandman25]

I simply found that the game was a lot easier with penetrating large rocks for my troll when going up against packs of, say Death Yaks in a line, or Hydra hiding behind rats, than it used to be.

I didn't notice that death yaks were lining up or that hydras spawned with a rat band. This changes everthing.

Death Yaks have normal speed and are generated in packs usually, it's not that hard to lead them into a corridor even if there is only one corridor on the whole level.

[Siegurt]

Yes it will; maybe you don't know what '.' does. If you aim to a square and press ".", the missile you launch will not pass beyond that square.

I know what '.' does. Consider this example:
You are in corridor and there are 2 monsters, each has 20% to be hit by large rock. In old crawl you could throw a rock and experience the following results:
1) 20% - only first enemy is hit
2) 16% (0.8*0.2) - only second enemy is hit
3) 64% - no enemy is hit.

In new crawl you have
1) 4% (0.2*0.2) - both enemies are hit
2) 16% (0.2*0.8) - only first enemy is hit
3) 16% (0.8*0.2) - only second enemy is hit
4) 64% - no enemy is hit

In new crawl with '.' at first enemy:
1) 20% - only first enemy is hit
2) 80% - no enemy is hit.

You have almost half a chance to hit an enemy comparing with #1 (20% instead of 36%).

For more enemies it gets even worse - you lose chance to hurt all of them except first one.
If you are throwing a rock at 5 monsters and every monster has 20% chance to be hit, you had more than 63% to hit one of them, with '.' you have only 20%.

You should select the *last* enemy in the line and use '.' for optimal hit chances and lowest "have to go fetch my item" problems.