Bug with ego armor

[PowerWyrm]

Since changeset 1757 (closing ticket #782), M lines have been added to ego_item.txt to fix minimum values for to-hit, to-dam, to-ac and pval.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but all ego armor now have lost their penalty to-hit:
Chain Mail of Resistance (-2) [14,+10] has become Chain Mail of Resistance [14,+10] due to the code added in apply_magic()

/* Apply minimums */
if (o_ptr->to_h < e_ptr->min_to_h) o_ptr->to_h = e_ptr->min_to_h;

No minimum set for the ego, defaulted to zero...
Maybe change that to:

/* Apply minimums */
if (e_ptr->min_to_h && o_ptr->to_h < e_ptr->min_to_h) o_ptr->to_h = e_ptr->min_to_h;

[d_m]

Thanks, I don't have time to test this, but it looks like you're right. I will fix it soon if no one else gets to it.

[Derakon]

Of course, that means that you can no longer set a minimum of 0, but it's better than the current behavior.

[Magnate]

Of course, that means that you can no longer set a minimum of 0, but it's better than the current behavior.

I think I'd like to argue for ego armour not having to-hit penalties. Yes this current behaviour is unintentional, but I think I quite like it. Anyone?

[PowerDiver]

I think the penalties should be dex penalties instead of [or in addition to] hit penalties, and egos shouldn't help. Maybe twice the value currently used. Heavy armor ought to be encumbering.

[Magnate]

I think the penalties should be dex penalties instead of [or in addition to] hit penalties, and egos shouldn't help. Maybe twice the value currently used. Heavy armor ought to be encumbering.

That's reflected in it using up your weight allowance, surely?

[Derakon]

If I strap heavy plate armor onto you, you aren't going to be able to swing your arms as quickly. Currently you still get max blows even if you're 600 pounds over your weight limit, so long as you meet the STR/DEX breakpoints.

That said, this would obviously have to wait for multiple pvals and fractional blows (lest the impact of -1 dex from your armor halve your offensive capabilities), and even then I'm not convinced it's a good idea.

[PowerWyrm]

I think I'd like to argue for ego armour not having to-hit penalties. Yes this current behaviour is unintentional, but I think I quite like it. Anyone?

But the artifacts still get the to-hit penalty (and some even get a higher penalty)... so why not the egos?

[Timo Pietilä]

But the artifacts still get the to-hit penalty (and some even get a higher penalty)... so why not the egos?

IIRC they have it set in artifact.txt, otherwise they don't have that penalty. Look at Isildur, it doesn't have the penalty.

[PowerDiver]

That said, this would obviously have to wait for multiple pvals and fractional blows (lest the impact of -1 dex from your armor halve your offensive capabilities), and even then I'm not convinced it's a good idea.

Heavy armor is a tradeoff of defense vs offense. I see no reason it should not cut your offense in half. I wouldn't mind energy per blow being increased by a factor something like weight/50lb. Of course, this is yet another example screwing warriors and leaving mages as the ones using heavy armor. So long as monsters do more damage with breaths than with melee I don't see this changing.

[Derakon]

My point on the halving of offense is that currently it's entirely too easy for a change of just one point in a stat to have a massive effect on your capabilities. If the player has to choose between an extra 30AC or his second blow, he's going to choose the second blow every time unless he has no need for melee at all. Even losing your fourth blow for 30AC is a bad trade -- heck, we trade lower AC for higher offense all the time with rings of Reckless Attacks.

Thus, any combat penalties for heavy armor are going to need to wait until we have finer-grained control over those penalties; or else we need to make heavy armor much more enticing.

That in mind, it'd be very helpful to display somewhere your current damage reduction from AC, as well as your chance to be hit by variously-leveled monsters. From my reading of the source:

The monster's attack power is their level * 3, plus the power of their attack. Attack powers depend on the type: hurt/shatter are 60; disenchant is 20, drain charges is 15, all others are 10 or lower. Thus Morgoth's power is 360 for his shatter attacks, while a level-50 monster hitting to hurt you has a power of 210.

On any attack, regardless of AC or power, there's a pre-emptive 5% chance each to hit or to miss. Otherwise, if randint(power) > .75 * AC, then the monster hits. So, ignoring the 5% either-way chances, Morgoth has a 210/360 chance to hit you with his shatter attacks if your AC is 200; the level-50 monster would have a 60/210 to hit-hurt you.

The following attacks have their damage reduced by min(AC, 150) / 250 percent: HIT_HURT, HIT_SHATTER. Thus, each point of AC up to 150 improves your damage reduction by .4% against many melee attacks, with max reduction of 60%.

Chance-to-be-hit calculations in particular are a pain; it'd be great if the program would calculate all that for us.

[buzzkill]

I learned something today.
I've played this game too long to have never heard that before. It makes me long for the good ole days of THAC0.

[PowerDiver]

My point on the halving of offense is that currently it's entirely too easy for a change of just one point in a stat to have a massive effect on your capabilities. If the player has to choose between an extra 30AC or his second blow, he's going to choose the second blow every time unless he has no need for melee at all. Even losing your fourth blow for 30AC is a bad trade -- heck, we trade lower AC for higher offense all the time with rings of Reckless Attacks.

I guess the difference between us is that I think those are all *good* arguments. I'd prefer to see adventurers forgo heavy armor. Plate mail belongs on a knight riding a horse, and needed a squire to help put it on in the first place. Adventurers should prefer filthy rags of elvenkind.

[Magnate]

I guess the difference between us is that I think those are all *good* arguments. I'd prefer to see adventurers forgo heavy armor. Plate mail belongs on a knight riding a horse, and needed a squire to help put it on in the first place. Adventurers should prefer filthy rags of elvenkind.

And if V ever gets a wilderness, that'll be right. But at the moment we're trying to cram the entire range of magical and medaieval equipment experiences into one dungeon crawl, so IMO heavy armour fits just as well as polearms and mumaks. Taking your logic to its conclusion would result in a much leaner game - which might be fun and consistent, but wouldn't be angband.

I'm convinced by this thread that restoring the to-hit penalty for egos is definitely the wrong solution. Now that we have fractional blows in nightlies we can experiment with EPB penalties for armour instead - this would remove the breakpoint effect of DEX penalties. With those you could sometimes wear heavy armour with impunity, and sometimes not - that makes no sense.

I've said before that I'm very happy to see "You have X% chance to hit this monster in your current state" added to monster recall, but I am concerned that this may be criticised as "making the game too easy" as it's info that traditionally has been kept hidden. Timo, are you here?

[Derakon]

I've said before that I'm very happy to see "You have X% chance to hit this monster in your current state" added to monster recall, but I am concerned that this may be criticised as "making the game too easy" as it's info that traditionally has been kept hidden. Timo, are you here?

In my opinion, anything that the player could calculate if they were willing to put in the effort and had access to the source code shouldn't be purposefully hidden from them. Of course, this doesn't gel with the monster memory system currently, but at the very least the equations that drive the game should be transparent. Thus, as soon as the player knows a monster's AC (and assuming they know the bonuses on their own weapon) they should know what their chance to hit is.

Of course this gets hairier with ranged combat, where the player not only has a different weapon, but also a selection of ammo each with separate to-hit bonuses. But at the very least they should get a sense of their chances to hit based on the probabilities they get with melee combat, which is better than they get now. Perhaps we could modify weapon 'I'nspection to also include your chance to hit the last monster you tried to attack.