Resist system

[Timo Pietilä]

Ha yes even Timo can't resist tinkering

Bring on Timoband

I'm not really doing tinkering, but if I would be doing something to resist, I would be doing it like that. Current way of things works, there is no real reason to change it, and it affects too many things to be actually changed anyway unless you do it in a variant that can throw everything away and do them from scratch. That is just not acceptable for vanilla angband.

I could do a "timoband" if I had some time. Problem with that is that I tend to get too ambitious with my plans and get stuck in some problem I can't solve without serious tinkering with the code, and then I don't have time to actually do anything.

[Timo Pietilä]

I know this but what about the situation where you have 900 hp, currently you can take one fireball, then you have to bail or heal. In your system that one fireball is over 70% likely to only hit for 320 points or less meaning you will not have to heal or bail after the first fireball. You may not even need to heal after the second fireball. The max damage is still possible so yes, you need to maintain at least 533 hp but the ability of monsters to get you down to that point is drastically lowered in your system.

There are only few monsters that are anywhere near dangerous with basic four elements once you have resist, so this doesn't actually change that much.

I made double-resist weaker. With double resist max you can get currently is 177 points of damage, everyone except warriors get the double-resist against fire and cold, and all arcane magic users get it for everything. That is what really changes there.

With my system there is a flat change of 2/6 that you get more than that (266 and 228) and 1/6 that is is just slightly less (160). So what really changes is warriors, which now have better survival against things with single resist and things that breathe lightning at full strength (Ancalagon only?) or near full strength (GStormW, GWoMC) for priests and paladins because acid gets halved by armor and poison has smaller cap anyway, so once you have the resist for those two they become irrelevant.

Basic 4 is more like a aggravation for most cases. If you haven't got it you are toast. If you have it (the element) it became irrelevant for adventuring.

If you want to make that a bit less powerful change we can change the way monster breaths are calculated, maybe divide HP by two instead of three to get max breath power.

Then maybe basic four as a resist becomes relevant before you meet AMHD, that is the first monster that is truly dangerous with all basic element breaths, and it still isn't getting max even for poison. With current way of handling basic 4 & poison are the problematic elements, not the high elements.

Problem as I see it is that basic four are pretty much like free action, a binary system. If you have them the thing it affects becomes irrelevant, if you don't that thing kills you. High elements stay interesting with resists and are survivable without, so there is no problem.

[buzzkill]

I like this idea, but it may be difficult to implement without big monster changes. For example, Ancalagon currently breathes the cap until he's down below half hitpoints. A formula without a cap would AFAICS mean either making him considerably more dangerous at the start, or start losing power immediately. But maybe the latter is OK, come to think of it.

Yeah, I hadn't put much thought into it, but despite that, came to the same conclusion. Initially, breathers would have to be more powerful in order to maintain balance (not make them weaker).

If I knew more about HP numbers and Native Depth numbers I throw together a spreadsheet and plug in some numbers, but I don't (and I've got full faith is your ability to do a better job than I).

[Antoine]

You complain that I want to change the game too much but you suggest doubling the effectiveness of basic resists. You complain about high resists not being effective but complain when someone suggests chaging them.

Ha yes even Timo can't resist tinkering

Bring on Timoband

A.

[Jungle_Boy]

Average damage is not the same as max damage. Maximum damage is still high, same as it was previously in fact, and that is what really counts. When you have less HP than max damage you might receive you either bail out or heal.

I know this but what about the situation where you have 900 hp, currently you can take one fireball, then you have to bail or heal. In your system that one fireball is over 70% likely to only hit for 320 points or less meaning you will not have to heal or bail after the first fireball. You may not even need to heal after the second fireball. The max damage is still possible so yes, you need to maintain at least 533 hp but the ability of monsters to get you down to that point is drastically lowered in your system.

[Timo Pietilä]

You complain that I want to change the game too much but you suggest doubling the effectiveness of basic resists. You complain about high resists not being effective but complain when someone suggests chaging them.

With the change you suggest the average max damage fireball would be 233!!

Average damage is not the same as max damage. Maximum damage is still high, same as it was previously in fact, and that is what really counts. When you have less HP than max damage you might receive you either bail out or heal.

I didn't complain that high resist are ineffective, I complained that someone wanted to change them to be fixed and effective. Big difference.

[Nick]

Independent of other changes, what about removing the damage cap and instead somehow basing max damage on raw numbers (an equation involving HP's and native depth maybe).

I like this idea, but it may be difficult to implement without big monster changes. For example, Ancalagon currently breathes the cap until he's down below half hitpoints. A formula without a cap would AFAICS mean either making him considerably more dangerous at the start, or start losing power immediately. But maybe the latter is OK, come to think of it.

So, I like the idea and will think more about it's feasibility

[Jungle_Boy]

How about removing double resists completely? Or make basic four also variable resist with max damage close to 550 with resist with double-resist doubling the count? Something like dam / (1d7+2) with double then being that twice: dam/ 2*(1d7+2): at best dam/6 which is more than currently and at worst dam/18 which is (much) less than currently.

I think the problem people have here is that they get used to fixed heavy damage reduction with basic 4 with very predictable results and then experience less predictable results with high elements. If you have variable resist from the start, then that problem goes away.

You complain that I want to change the game too much but you suggest doubling the effectiveness of basic resists. You complain about high resists not being effective but complain when someone suggests chaging them.

With the change you suggest the average max damage fireball would be 233!! You just halved the damage of every breather in game. Yes you have to be prepared for max damage but when it doesn't happen you are already prepared for the next one.

[Timo Pietilä]

Just leave equipment as is, then count and store the number of a resist flag and use something like the following table to get the damage reduction.
1 - 35% (+35)

with this:
1 permanent is close to current (35%)

This is wrong, currently single resist counts for 66%. You would be forcing people to use two or more resists for each basic four elements.

Start with 66% and then count down with maybe some logarithmic calculation each additional resist halving the remaining damage.

66 - 83 - 92 - 96 - 98 - 99 - 100. Temp resist count as one of those.

This still makes extra permanent resist too strong which results in change in gameplay.

How about removing double resists completely? Or make basic four also variable resist with max damage close to 550 with resist with double-resist doubling the count? Something like dam / (1d7+2) with double then being that twice: dam/ 2*(1d7+2): at best dam/6 which is more than currently and at worst dam/18 which is (much) less than currently.

I think the problem people have here is that they get used to fixed heavy damage reduction with basic 4 with very predictable results and then experience less predictable results with high elements. If you have variable resist from the start, then that problem goes away.

[Timo Pietilä]

As it stands, the random higher resists currently reduce damage to:

* light and dark: 4/12 to 4/7 (33 - 57%)
* sound (and previously confusion): 5/12 to 5/7 (42 - 71%)
* chaos, disen, nexus, shards, nether: 6/12 to 6/7 (50 - 85%)

Rather than any major reworking of the resist system, to begin with I would propose just fixing those values to:

* light, dark, sound: 1/2
* chaos, disen, nexus, shards, nether: 2/3

I think that would do a lot to simplify the situation without (in theory) having much visible effect on gameplay.

Yes it does, because you don't use average damage in estimating monster deadliness, you use maximum damage. Closer to what it is now would be

* light, dark, sound 5/7.
* chaos, disen, nexus, shards, nether: 6/7.

If you can count on much less damage you weaken those elements a lot. Make them irrelevant with resist. This changes gameplay significantly.

[Blue Baron]

With a minor tweak to the numbers, you have re-invented the Oangband resistance system. Nice work! It took Bahman a few attempts

Really? from earlier posts, it seemed like the Oangband has numbers in the item information. Anyways, good, I thought that might be an additional step away from the tested system the dev team prefers.

[Nick]

Just leave equipment as is, then count and store the number of a resist flag and use something like the following table to get the damage reduction.
1 - 35% (+35)
2 - 60% (+25)
3 - 75% (+15)
4 - 85% (+10)
5 - 90% (+5)
6 - 95% (+5)
7+ - 100% (+5)
2 resists avoid the side effect.
temporary resists count for 3 permanent resists

with this:
1 permanent is close to current (35%)
1 permanent + temp resist is close to current (85%)
7 permanent resists or 4 permanent and temp resist gives immunity.

With a minor tweak to the numbers, you have re-invented the Oangband resistance system. Nice work! It took Bahman a few attempts

[Blue Baron]

I am indifferent to what is or is not done to the resist system, but I thought I would share a system that I thought of while reading this thread that seemed interesting to me.

Just leave equipment as is, then count and store the number of a resist flag and use something like the following table to get the damage reduction.
1 - 35% (+35)
2 - 60% (+25)
3 - 75% (+15)
4 - 85% (+10)
5 - 90% (+5)
6 - 95% (+5)
7+ - 100% (+5)
2 resists avoid the side effect.
temporary resists count for 3 permanent resists

with this:
1 permanent is close to current (35%)
1 permanent + temp resist is close to current (85%)
7 permanent resists or 4 permanent and temp resist gives immunity.

However, temporary resists by themselves would be worth a lot more, 75% vs 33%, so this may not work.

I think that this would have more interesting equipment choices, but again, I do not have an opinion whether or not the resist system is changed (or how). I'm just tossing another idea out.

[Nomad]

At the very least I'd like it to be apparent to the player that timed resists + permanent resists do stack, but multiple perm resists don't. This is an essential part of gameplay that's hard to figure out, and I think that is problematic. I don't know how to present this seamlessly in the gameplay though.

I think I mentioned this idea in a previous discussion on this issue, but I quite like the idea of having your base resist levels displayed in the sidebar, like so:

[BC=black]             
 rAcid  [COLOR="#C00000"]None[/COLOR] 
 rElec  [COLOR="#FFFF00"]x1/3[/COLOR] 
 rFire  [COLOR="#00FF00"]x1/9[/COLOR] 
 rCold  [COLOR="#008040"]****[/COLOR] 
             [/BC]

That way newbies would be able to observe resistance stacking/non-stacking in action, and also you'd be more likely to spot if you've left any dangerous resistance gaps swapping gear around in the late game.

[Derakon]

Oddly the one proposal I'm in favor of is making a second resist count for something, at least on the base 4. At the very least I'd like it to be apparent to the player that timed resists + permanent resists do stack, but multiple perm resists don't. This is an essential part of gameplay that's hard to figure out, and I think that is problematic. I don't know how to present this seamlessly in the gameplay though.

Probably the easiest way to do this would be to have a page that shows the player's current damage reductions from all sources, e.g.

You take only 11% normal damage from fire attacks (max 177).
You take only 33% normal damage from cold, lightning, and acid attacks (max  533).
You take only 50% normal damage from light and darkness attacks (max 200).
...
Due to armor class, you take only 72% normal damage from standard melee attacks.

Obviously this is trickier with variable resists, but the overall idea would be that a new player would find their second source of permanent resistance, equip it, look at this screen, and realize that nothing had changed.

More generally, this would be ideal information to display on another 'C' screen stats page.