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Although the central place for design discussion is ##crawl-dev on freenode, some may find it helpful to discuss requests and suggestions here first.
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Lasty wrote:The chart looks like a pretty decent set of outcomes.
With the old formula, when people would ask what weapon to choose, the heuristic was generally "wield the biggest thing you can, and train it to minimum delay". That heuristic appears to no longer be true under the new metric; what's the new heuristic?
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evilmike wrote:Looks to me like the numbers are fine for 2 handers, but 1 handed weapons take a fairly big hit. The best 1handers (demon/holy) seem to need much more skill under the new formula to reach the same damage numbers. For me the main reason to use a demon whip/blade is the low skill investment needed, a great mace/great sword will hit harder eventually but it takes much more xp to outclass the demon weapons. The charts you posted make it look like there's only a small difference now, so I think the balance would be pushed even more in favour of 2 handed weapons. I don't know what can be changed to fix that though.
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Lasty wrote:Dagger: a little better at skill 0, but takes 16 SB skill to get to the point where it matches old daggers at skill 10.
Quickblade: also start better, but doesn't beat old quickblade at min delay (skill 8) until it hits skill 17.
Short sword: same pattern, but doesn't beat old short swords at min delay (skill 12) until skill 19.
Cutlass: same pattern, but doesn't beat old cutlass at min delay (skill 14) until skill 23!
evilmike wrote:Looks to me like the numbers are fine for 2 handers, but 1 handed weapons take a fairly big hit. The best 1handers (demon/holy) seem to need much more skill under the new formula to reach the same damage numbers.
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galehar wrote:At this point, I was more looking for feedback on the formula rather than the balance of individual weapons.
galehar wrote:The new base delays are just rough estimates that don't completely break the balance, there is still a lot tuning to do. I haven't looked closely at short blades, so maybe they'll need to be buffed with a smaller base delay or a higher base damage. What is certain is that under the new formula, the fast weapons benefit less from training skill. Not sure if it's much worse than the old formula where they benefited a lot until min delay (which was reached rather quickly) and then almost not at all.
If set the following goals:
* some weapons need more training than others to be efficient
* weapon choice depends on skill level (corollary to the previous)
* no hard breakpoints
Then the consequence is that some weapons benefit much less from skill training.
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Lasty wrote:With the old formula, when people would ask what weapon to choose, the heuristic was generally "wield the biggest thing you can, and train it to minimum delay". That heuristic appears to no longer be true under the new metric; what's the new heuristic?
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Leafsnail wrote:instead of comparing a few different weapon options I'm now trying to work out where I want to be on a continuous curve of XP investment and effectiveness.
Wahaha wrote:As I said in the other thread, the very easy way to fix one handers vs two handers is to give big weapons a bigger accuracy penalty, so that higher skill levels are needed to use them effectively. Suddenly a claymore isn't the best at 10 skill anymore!
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duvessa wrote:Unless you completely change the EV formula, wouldn't this pretty much break the instant a weapon gets a nonzero to-hit enchantment or a player gets nonzero to-hit slaying?
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Wahaha wrote:That's the point of removing break points. You have to decide how effective you want to be with a weapon in the same way that you decide how much armor or dodging to train. Players don't have too much trouble deciding how much armor and dodging they need, weapon skill should be the same.
Wahaha wrote:However it's not as simple as "I have 15 skill, let me look at the charts and get the bestest weapon for 15 skill". In a real game weapons aren't just base types, they have enchantments and brands. Not to mention demon weapons and lajatangs are rare. Often there will be an obvious choice from the weapons that you actually have.
Wahaha wrote:Another thing to note is that with the new system, higher skill levels continue to significantly improve all weapons, even those that would've hit their breakpoint in the old system. So unlike the old system, with the new system even if your weapon isn't the best type for the skill level you have, it still benefits from the extra skill levels and in the end the difference between similar base types is small. The fact that your weapon is +5 of freezing instead of +0 unbranded is what matters.
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Leafsnail wrote:I don't see how this addresses anything I said. The fact that finding which weapon is best for you right now might require you to run a few fight sims of your own doesn't make it any more interesting.
e: and also that you'll have to run more fight sims to decide which weapon to use I guess.
Leafsnail wrote:To me it seems to just mean that how much you want to train your weapons skill won't be affected at all by what you find - you'll just use whatever weapon happens to be best for you right now and keep training to whatever number/ in whatever ratio you've decided to go with.
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evilmike wrote:Looks to me like the numbers are fine for 2 handers, but 1 handed weapons take a fairly big hit. ... I don't know what can be changed to fix that though.
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Do you fsim the exact point when a +3 long sword becomes worse than a +2 scimitar? No, and there's no reason to do it with the new system.
You're still assuming that with the new system it's better to pick a skill level and then pick a weapon that suits that skill level. That doesn't make any sense. A good weapon suitable for your skill level won't suddenly appear in front of you. First you find A good weapon. Then you train enough skill to use it. Same as with the current system. The only difference is that instead of an exact spoilery skill level at which to stop, the amount of skill you can train is variable, but you're sure to be fairly rewarded with extra speed and damage for every level.
I think [demon whip's] still a good weapon with low skill investment.
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Leafsnail wrote:Ultimately I just prefer having big, easily understood decisions when it comes to my character's offensive capabilities (like with spell success/slots) but if that's not a design goal then I guess it's moot.
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galehar wrote:After some more experimentation, I am not satisfied with the stepdown. Starting from the linear speed formula (speed = 10/delay + k * skill), I replaced skill by stepdown(skill, base_delay * alpha) to give a steeper slope to slow weapons speed (so that they can catch up). It also had the side effect of inverting the direction of the curvature which I think is counter productive. Maybe by going back to a linear speed formula, it will be easier to approximate the old system.
So, let's go back to the linear speed formula (speed = 10/delay + k * skill) and simply make the slope depends on base delay:
speed = 10/base_delay + (alpha + base_delay) * skill / beta
I'll try that and let you know
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TheDefiniteArticle wrote:The weak point of the proposal is that every long blade character will always use the claymore and never use anything else because outside of pain/elec brands there is no compelling reason to ever use any other long blade.
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DracheReborn wrote:galehar: On the new formula you posted, it looks like claymore eventually gets a lower delay than a dagger, which seems counterintuitive.
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At this point, I was more looking for feedback on the formula rather than the balance of individual weapons. The new base delays are just rough estimates that don't completely break the balance, there is still a lot tuning to do. I haven't looked closely at short blades, so maybe they'll need to be buffed with a smaller base delay or a higher base damage. What is certain is that under the new formula, the fast weapons benefit less from training skill. Not sure if it's much worse than the old formula where they benefited a lot until min delay (which was reached rather quickly) and then almost not at all.
If set the following goals:
* some weapons need more training than others to be efficient
* weapon choice depends on skill level (corollary to the previous)
* no hard breakpoints
Then the consequence is that some weapons benefit much less from skill training.
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acvar wrote:At this point, I was more looking for feedback on the formula rather than the balance of individual weapons. The new base delays are just rough estimates that don't completely break the balance, there is still a lot tuning to do. I haven't looked closely at short blades, so maybe they'll need to be buffed with a smaller base delay or a higher base damage. What is certain is that under the new formula, the fast weapons benefit less from training skill. Not sure if it's much worse than the old formula where they benefited a lot until min delay (which was reached rather quickly) and then almost not at all.
If set the following goals:
* some weapons need more training than others to be efficient
* weapon choice depends on skill level (corollary to the previous)
* no hard breakpoints
Then the consequence is that some weapons benefit much less from skill training.
Here is a suggestion. Just make damage more dependent on weapon skill and str/dex, and less dependant on the actual weapon. For example:
1. All weapons except the quick blade have the same min delay but different starting delays.
2. Weapons have a damage multiplier that ranges about 90% to 110% for one handers, and 125% to 130% for two handers.
3. Base damage is something like rand(skill) + rand(stat). This is overly simplified for discussion purpouses.
4. Weapon enchantments add directly to the percentage for the weapon damage modifier.
So how does this effect things. Well lets assume that the min delay for weapons is 7. So a falchion that starts with a delay of 13 hits it min delay at 12 weapon skill, but do you stop training there? Of course not. There is a very big bonus to continue traning long blades since it has such a large effect on damage. The hard break point is gone. It is still a good idea to keep track of your weapon delay to maximize your damage, but now even more so since there is not much difference in damage per hit between a falchion and a tripple sword. This fits all your criteria. It also has the added benefit of making the physical stats more relevent, and making it less relevent if you find the "right" upgrade to your current weapon, all good things.
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acvar wrote:At this point, I was more looking for feedback on the formula rather than the balance of individual weapons. The new base delays are just rough estimates that don't completely break the balance, there is still a lot tuning to do. I haven't looked closely at short blades, so maybe they'll need to be buffed with a smaller base delay or a higher base damage. What is certain is that under the new formula, the fast weapons benefit less from training skill. Not sure if it's much worse than the old formula where they benefited a lot until min delay (which was reached rather quickly) and then almost not at all.
If set the following goals:
* some weapons need more training than others to be efficient
* weapon choice depends on skill level (corollary to the previous)
* no hard breakpoints
Then the consequence is that some weapons benefit much less from skill training.
Here is a suggestion. Just make damage more dependent on weapon skill and str/dex, and less dependant on the actual weapon. For example:
1. All weapons except the quick blade have the same min delay but different starting delays.
2. Weapons have a damage multiplier that ranges about 90% to 110% for one handers, and 125% to 130% for two handers.
3. Base damage is something like rand(skill) + rand(stat). This is overly simplified for discussion purpouses.
4. Weapon enchantments add directly to the percentage for the weapon damage modifier.
So how does this effect things. Well lets assume that the min delay for weapons is 7. So a falchion that starts with a delay of 13 hits it min delay at 12 weapon skill, but do you stop training there? Of course not. There is a very big bonus to continue traning long blades since it has such a large effect on damage. The hard break point is gone. It is still a good idea to keep track of your weapon delay to maximize your damage, but now even more so since there is not much difference in damage per hit between a falchion and a tripple sword. This fits all your criteria. It also has the added benefit of making the physical stats more relevent, and making it less relevent if you find the "right" upgrade to your current weapon, all good things.
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Siegurt wrote:One thing with a system like this is that it *does* de-emphasize the current focus on finding weapon upgrades. Currently when you *don't* find a weapon upgrade in the category you're training now, you have to choose: do you continue to hold out, do you train for a different weapon, do you go for spells instead of trying to become a melee god. All those choices become moot if you can simply pick your starting weapon and use it through the whole game, it makes it a simpler, and non-adaptive sort of game, and IMHO less interesting. One of the things that makes crawl a good game, is you *can't* count on the RNG to give you just the right upgrades, and you have to adapt. To give it a counterpoint, we wouldn't want to make all starting spellbooks with attack spells that scaled up in skill until they were as powerful as level 9 spells. Part of the point of the game is to take the good that you find and make the best you can of it.
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acvar wrote:In addition it is stupid that a pure spellcaster can just happen upon a random artifact after totally neglecting his martial skills and suddenly becom a competent fighter with zero training.
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acvar wrote:Siegurt: Note that the numbers I gave were just an example. They could easily be played with to make weapon upgrades more important. Having 1 handers range from 50% to 100% and two handers from 150% to 200% would cetainly retain the need for weapon upgrades while still doing all the things we want. What is really important is to make damage more tied to weapon skill. The reason I gave the small variation in weapon damage is in part a philosphical difference in what the game should be from you, but lets face facts the starting spellbooks for pure casters scale far better then starting weapons for fighters.
acvar wrote:To balance them out a fighter would have to start with a mace, flail, and morning star, and then hope only to find that great mace he needs. In addition it is stupid that a pure spellcaster can just happen upon a random artifact after totally neglecting his martial skills and suddenly becom a competent fighter with zero training. That would be like a fighter finding a spellbook with firestorm in it and immediatly torching everything in sight with firestorm without any training. I think everybody would agree that the latter is stupid, but for some reason most accept the former. Why?
The long and the short of it is that martial characters should be rewarded more for their skill (and stat) investment. Doing so will incentivise them to actaully invest in those skills which is what we all want isn't it?
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Hirsch I wrote:Also,are you calling me a power-gamer? this is highly offensive! now excuse me, I have to go back to my GrBe game, that I savescummed until trog gave me a Vampiric +9 claymore.
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acvar wrote:In addition it is stupid that a pure spellcaster can just happen upon a random artifact after totally neglecting his martial skills and suddenly becom a competent fighter with zero training. That would be like a fighter finding a spellbook with firestorm in it and immediatly torching everything in sight with firestorm without any training. I think everybody would agree that the latter is stupid, but for some reason most accept the former. Why?
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Well, this is already the current situation, weapon skill already influences damage, you're just inverting the formula, so that rather than x times y, you're doing y times x. Increasing the damage that skill gives could be just as easily accomplished in the current paradigm by increasing the percentage bonus that weapon skills have, and dropping the base damage by the same margin.
One of the problems I have with this is under your proposition, having 0 skill means you do no damage with all weapons, and having 1 skill means all weapons are the same
I would argue the following:
1. Spells have additional constraints and additional rewards aside from doing damage, comparing one to one isn't logical as they don't follow the same rules (for example, if there was a melee artifact which let you do 50-100 points of damage to everything in an 8 square circle at range, it wouldn't fly)
2. Spells aren't drop-in replacements or direct upgrades for earlier versions, many are better versions of attack spells, but they come with additional costs and deficits. A fighter that started with a mace, flail, and morning star can simply drop the mace and flail and use the morningstar at level 1, You can't memorize a 3rd or 4th level attack spell at level 1 and attack with it.
3. Someone who has trained 0 fighting and 0 weapon skills in exchange for large proficiencies in spellcasting, can pick up a weapon and use it, but can't be nearly as effective with it as someone who has trained for it (And certianly not as effective as they are with spells). Someone who hasn't trained any spellcasting skills can pick up a book, memorize a first level conjuration and cast it, and will not be nearly as effective as they are with melee (or as someone who has trained for spellcasting skills)
4. Spells and spellcasting have more functionality than simply being damaging. In many ways it can act as a compliment or augmentation *to* melee, and as such they should be harder to obtain. Being able to whack things with a weapon doesn't make you any better at blasting things with spells, being good at blasting things with spells can make you better at whacking things with a weapon.
This is a seriously invalid comparison. If you want to find a melee analogue for Fire Storm then you should surely look to high-end weapons such as Triple Swords, and it's pretty obvious that a primarily spellcasting character can't just pick up one of those and use it well for zero investment. They could certainly pick up something like a Demon Blade and invest a bunch of XP into it to become a fairly good melee fighter, but non-spellcasting characters can equally pick up some mid-level conjurations.
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Leafsnail wrote:Well yeah, I guess you can use a Triple Sword at 0 skill. It's just an incredibly dumb idea because you could swing faster and do more damage with almost any other long blade
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