New player lost without numbers

[Infini]

Hey everyone, new crawler here.
I've been enjoying dying a lot in this fun game lately, but I really feel powerless without one feature... numbers.

What I mean by that is I find it hard to improve if I can't tell what's going on in the game number wise, I really wish I could see stuff like monster's hp, or especially my damage on every hit, not just comments like "you hit em hard" - what does that mean ? Does it mean I dealt six or seventy six ? Is there a way to mod my game (I looked through the options and found nothing) so that it will display those numbers for me ?

[Galefury]

If you're playing locally, press &Y. This enables wizard mode, which is a cheat mode for testing. It shows a bunch of extra numbers. It also enables a lot of cheat commands and asks you if you really want to die when you do.

Exact numbers are not that important in crawl, but if you really need them wizmode is the way to go.

[eharper256]

Though keep in mind that Wizmode is effectively the dev's testing mode; and once you activate it you can't go back.

I find the healthbars above monsters is sufficient. But, of course, a hits damage can vary alot; many random number dice are involved usually, so I can understand where you're coming from with wanting to understand them.

[ebarrett]

Numbers in crawl tend towards one of "the effects are intuitive enough to do away with numbers" or "nobody understands the formula for this at all" - there's not much of a middle ground where numbers will give you any advantage beyond relying on whatever feedback the game currently gives you. Notable exceptions: weapon delay and spell hunger.

[Confidence Interval]

I'm with eharper in that I usually go by the healthbar above the monster's head (presuming you're being sensible and playing in tiles, no ascii).

I agree that it's slightly odd not being able to tell how hard you've hit someone: if you stuck a sword in someone in real life you'd probably notice the difference between it not apparently hurting them much and really doing them quite a lot of harm, actually. You wouldn't get a number, of course, but you'd probably be able to tell what was going on.

[crate]

The message you get when you hit an enemy tells you how hard you hit. More exclamation points = more hurt. You don't need to know more than that.

[varsovie]

The fact is, if you really need to know exactly how much damage you've done to beat an enemy, then maybe he is only too strong for you and you should act quickly (flee, spell, potions, scrolls, abilities...).

[ddubois]

I would really like it if the damage output for spells was known. While the wiki tells me that Iskenderun's Mystic Blast does "up to 2d28 ", and Throw Icicle does "3d20 damage at max", the entries for Lightning Bolt and Poison Arrow and Conjure Ball Lightning don't tell me jack. It's hard for a Wizard/Conjurer to make good decisions about what side schools to go into.

[evilmike]

I would really like it if the damage output for spells was known. While the wiki tells me that Iskenderun's Mystic Blast does "up to 2d28 ", and Throw Icicle does "3d20 damage at max", the entries for Lightning Bolt and Poison Arrow and Conjure Ball Lightning don't tell me jack. It's hard for a Wizard/Conjurer to make good decisions about what side schools to go into.

One thing I've thought for a while is that the spell power display (on the casting menu) could be improved to show this.

Right now it gives you a "power bar", which is useless for comparing spells (bolt of fire will do more damage than mystic blast, even if they are both at ##### power). It would make more sense, for damaging spells, to make this bar display average damage, instead of spellpower. Spellpower is a fairly meaningless stat to the player, and is only useful for knowing how close a spell is to its power cap.

With the right kind of scale, I think this would be a good way to show spell damage. Main thing you want to know isn't the raw dice rolls, it's how good x spell is compared to y.

[Confidence Interval]

One thing I've thought for a while is that the spell power display (on the casting menu) could be improved to show this.

I would welcome this, not least because I realise (having read your post) that I have been laboring under the misapprehension that the power bar *did* allow comparison across spells. I have much to learn about Crawl.

[rabidweasel]

With the right kind of scale, I think this would be a good way to show spell damage. Main thing you want to know isn't the raw dice rolls, it's how good x spell is compared to y.

It goes without saying that something similar for weapons in inventory would also be extremely useful. I know this has been discussed to death previously, however.

[galehar]

I really wish I could see stuff like monster's hp, or especially my damage on every hit, not just comments like "you hit em hard"

I have enabled this for wizard mode. No more needed to suffer the debug spam just to see the damage numbers.

[o_O]

The weapon and spell spreadsheets will calculate your average damage under various circumstances, for making comparisons. I'm not sure how current they are, but I found them helpful and sometimes surprising.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=359

[Robsoie]

I really wish I could see stuff like monster's hp, or especially my damage on every hit, not just comments like "you hit em hard"

I have enabled this for wizard mode. No more needed to suffer the debug spam just to see the damage numbers.

Hello,

I downloaded a window tile version of trunk and when enabling wizard mode i still do not see those damage numbers, either for ranged or close attack ,spells or regular.
I typed ? to see the list of wizard mode key but maybe i'm missing the obvious but i do not see a key for enabling this.

Any help please ?

[BlackSheep]

That change was reverted a few months later.

[Robsoie]

How sad.
Thanks for the reply.