-TA

[vorondil]

Are wands of teleport other necessary after finding a rod of teleport other?

[PowerDiver]

Are wands of teleport other necessary after finding a rod of teleport other?

The first reason is to have the ability to use it multiple times in a few turns. After a big summons, you might want to use it several turns in a row.

Another important reason is that the wand has a lower failure rate. The difference in rates can be large. If a monster is particularly nasty, I use a wand even if I have a charged rod available.

[takkaria]

The first reason is to have the ability to use it multiple times in a few turns. After a big summons, you might want to use it several turns in a row.

Another important reason is that the wand has a lower failure rate. The difference in rates can be large. If a monster is particularly nasty, I use a wand even if I have a charged rod available.

Eddie, whilst I remember, would you be interested in coming up with a different calculation for chance of device failure that would result in an integer percentage chance, or maybe something along the lines of "1 in x"?

[vorondil]

Eddie, are you the "Eddie" that wrote up tales of the bold rogue?

[Nick]

Eddie, are you the "Eddie" that wrote up tales of the bold rogue?

Is there any other?

[vorondil]

Is there any other?

I guess not? LOL

Yeah, "bold rogue" and a couple of the really detailed "Should I swap out Caspanion??!?" threads on this board (the answer tends to be "no" ) have taken me from a routine tombstone on cl10-15 to going strong at cl38.

[PowerDiver]

Eddie, whilst I remember, would you be interested in coming up with a different calculation for chance of device failure that would result in an integer percentage chance, or maybe something along the lines of "1 in x"?

Sure, I'd be happy to come up with something moderately sane.

To begin with, there are some basic issues.

Should the worst class/race combo at C_Level 50 and 18/200 INT have a 50% chance to activate the toughest item? Perhaps 0% or 90% would be better. Should a starting char have somewhere near a minimum 5% chance to activate PDSM?

Should there be the equivalent of "critical hits" upon activation? Perhaps a very high skill could lead to a fair chance of criticals with low level items.

As to integer percentages, if you do not allow for 100% activation, then there is no improvement beyond 99%, except perhaps improved criticals. Should there be 100% activation rates for sufficiently skilled chars? Should you allow 100% for some object types but not others, e.g. rods vs wands?


I could just answer these questions myself and produce something, but while I have opinions I don't have any strong feelings about any of them. People with arguments to support their opinions should definitely chime in. These decisions will definitely affect gameplay qualitatively.

Maybe this discussion is worth a thread of its own.

[and yes, I did write the tales of the bold]

[d_m]

Eddie, whilst I remember, would you be interested in coming up with a different calculation for chance of device failure that would result in an integer percentage chance, or maybe something along the lines of "1 in x"?

While I know you asked Eddie, it sounds interesting, so...

Do you want an algorithm to convert 0-100% into the "best" X in Y chance?

EDIT: I just missed Eddie's reply. I would still be interested in coming up with a way of representing percentages, if necessary.

[d_m]

Should the worst class/race combo at C_Level 50 and 18/200 INT have a 50% chance to activate the toughest item? Perhaps 0% or 90% would be better. Should a starting char have somewhere near a minimum 5% chance to activate PDSM?

I haven't read the code carefully, but it seems to me that many of the classes that need rods/staves/wands the most are probably the "worst" classes in terms of failure rates. How does this fit in that?

[Nick]

Eddie, whilst I remember, would you be interested in coming up with a different calculation for chance of device failure that would result in an integer percentage chance, or maybe something along the lines of "1 in x"?

Another issue to keep in mind here (if it isn't already) is Eddie's (? although I can't find the post now) idea of disconnecting activation difficulty from depth. Given the W line in monster.txt is

# W: depth : rarity : unused (always 0) : experience for kill

that 3rd field is just asking to be an activation measure of some sort.

[PowerDiver]

I suppose I should give an example of what I consider an obvious default approach to activation rates, on the assumption that 0% and 100% activation rates are not possible.

Let the player skill be S and the device skill required be R.

if (S < R)
succeed 1_in_(R+1-S)
else
fail 1_in_(S+3-R)

I would start with something similar to that, but everything would need to be rescaled so that activation percentages get higher faster.

[PowerDiver]

I haven't read the code carefully, but it seems to me that many of the classes that need rods/staves/wands the most are probably the "worst" classes in terms of failure rates. How does this fit in that?

The solution to that is to make the items needed by a warrior have a lower skill level compared to luxuries for a deep mage. E.g. one could make a rod of teleport other have half the skill level of a wand of annihilation. Required skill level should be divorced from item depth, as mentioned elsewhere.