Missile weapons overpowered or not

[Timo Pietilä]

You are clearly misunderstanding his point. His didn't say there is anything wrong with using missile weapons.

What is 'wrong' with the current system is that there is is very little *cost* to you in using a missile weapon.

There is the cost that missile weapons are much weaker than melee as long as few pretty minor tweaks are made in ammunition. Even with nearly perfect weapon you have at best 30% of melee-weapon power if you don't have also suitable ego ammunition. With effective ego ammunition it is closer to 90% of melee-weapon.

It is not the launcher that we should pay attention to, it is the ammo. Ego ammunition other than slay evil triple the damage and that is too much, unless ammunition with those bonuses are rare which is not the case currently (branding spell, abundance of ego-items in deep levels). For very early game I suggest we remove enchanting scrolls from stores. That never felt right to me, and *that* is the reason missile launchers are so overpowered very early in game.

As I said in my initial post missile weapons are OK *IF* we make these changes:

a) remove overpowered slings of buckland (or make it an artifact)
b) remove many ego-ammunition types (ego-ammunition is what makes bow really powerful, this is what "old days" used to be, not many ego-types there, so no issue in overpowered missiles either)

edit in this: also base ammunition types included only two / launcher types. Now there are three, which makes ammunition 1/3 more likely to appear.

c) remove ammo branding in spells.
d) new one: either make shooting at point blank very very difficult or disallow it completely.

d is something that really should be done. No more point blank shooting. In reality you would not be able to hit anything if there is someone right next to you trying to hit you. This hinders shooter capability nicely.

Also one other post mentioned that enchanting of ammunition should be prevented entirely. That could pretty much solve entire problem with shooters. You could still have very good ammunition, but less of those. Also what I have read here Takkaria will tweak ego-items distribution so that there will be much less ego-items so I really don't see any real reason weakening shooters any further.

[Zyphyr]

Is it "overpowered" to use missile weapons *exactly for that reason*? You are saying that one of the main non-cheating tactical methods of killing monsters without risking death is wrong. That's just bullshit. Using hockey stick is wrong, using shoot and scoot is not.

You are clearly misunderstanding his point. His didn't say there is anything wrong with using missile weapons.

What is 'wrong' with the current system is that there is is very little *cost* to you in using a missile weapon. This is a game of tradeoffs. Prior to the addition of the quiver, one could argue that the inventory spaces used up by your ammunition was the price you payed for the safety of being at range.

With the quiver, the only real cost remaining is the weight of the ammo. That is relatively minor. Not nearly enough to counterbalance the advantage of being immune to melee-only opponents.

If the quiver stays in, ranged damage needs to come down to reflect the lower cost.

[Antoine]

Using nukes against individual persons would be rather wasteful I would say.

It depends on the person.

A.

[Timo Pietilä]

I know, for sure, that I have chosen missile attacks at 20% of melee to kill Khim or Mim, and I didn't think it was a close decision, so I guessed the breakpoint is 10%.

For you maybe, but you are hardly a traditional player. In fact your playing style differs so much from majority of players that you are hardly even qualified to tell what is good thing to have in Angband. 20% is a maybe.

If you can phase 50 times,

That is a lot of phasing. A lot. I use phase quite a lot, but 50 is too much even for me. Even if I could do that, if I would be required to do that in order to kill him I would consider alternative methods. Probably teleport other, destruction or teleport self.

you only need to be able to do cumulative [with his healing] 2% of his hp between phases to eliminate him from the game and stop pissing you off. Then you head back to town to rest and requip. For someone with the phase spell plus a moderate stack of ?phase, this is entirely achievable.

...and extremely boring. And annoying.

10% of melee at best is so weak that even mediocre magic devices make more damage, like rods of lightning bolts. I would never ever use missiles if they were *that* weak at best. Spells, devices and bad language make more damage than that.

It's even worse for Harowen. Even with all resists, it is nearly impossible to kill him with melee. I'd certainly use missiles at 10% of melee against him.

I would just get rid of him with tele-other. I probably wouldn't even try to kill him in entire game. Or I would kill him with magic.

Missiles are overpowered because you can avoid the side effects.

Is it "overpowered" to use missile weapons *exactly for that reason*? You are saying that one of the main non-cheating tactical methods of killing monsters without risking death is wrong. That's just bullshit. Using hockey stick is wrong, using shoot and scoot is not.

Change Mim's disenchantment attack to a ranged attack, and then you would consider whether to use missile or melee based upon comparative damage.

Then I would just avoid him sooner, not considering even getting in LoS of him until I have disenchantment resist. That would just make Mim more annoying, but not more dangerous. I would certainly not use missiles with only 10% of melee power at max. Magic missiles, OoD maybe.

Not very good example. Would you fight Great Wyrm with missiles or with melee if missiles have only 10% of melee power? No, you would not. If it is asleep you would try to sneak in next to it and engage melee. If it is awake you would rush in next to it to engage in melee. With current badly reduced missile range you would win in that. Or you could back up in place where it is forced to go next to you so that you can engage melee. Or you could ignore it. You would never use missiles.

Something other, troll perhaps, in early game. 10% of melee damage would require huge stack of arrows and a lot of phase door scrolls. Not doable, if it is too dangerous to melee.

You would perhaps use missile weapons against monster that you don't want to melee, you have to kill and who resists every magical thing you can use. There is just one problem: there isn't such a monster in Angband.

Every wargame I have ever played makes ranged attacks significantly weaker than direct attacks, I presume because all of the game designers agreed with me that it improves gameplay.

This is not a wargame. If it were you would be using *mainly* distance-attacks, because they are *more* effective than direct melee. Choose between hand-to-hand combat and shooting with assault rifle. It is your choice. Or, if you are dealing with dark-ages or Roman empire times, then you *first* use missiles until enemy is too close for missiles to be safe to use. Especially if enemy doesn't use missiles, then you would avoid direct melee until you have used all of your missiles.

In fact every wargame I have played makes ranged attacks the main attack type. There usually isn't melee at all, because it just is so weak compared to ranged attacks.

Well, there are ranged nuclear attacks, but they get other side effects so you cannot use them too often.

Using nukes against individual persons would be rather wasteful I would say.

[PowerDiver]

One random thought on the Ranger issue...why not have them get increments to their shooting power instead of shooting speed?

It seems reasonable that if they're that skilled with a bow, they could better aim for vulnerable parts on their targets, thereby doing more damage.

I don't think this is a good idea as stated, but rather part of a different better idea.

Criticals should depend upon to-hit roll rather than weapon weight.

I would make criticals a function of (hit roll / moster AC). So a ranger with a massive bow hit roll would be more likely to get criticals, improving damage that way. A fighter with a massive melee roll would get more criticals the same way. It also means that increased monster AC would lessen the likelihood of criticals, which I also believe to be a good thing, but I can see arguments both ways on that.

[PowerDiver]

I hope you mean 10% less than melee. If it is 10% of melee then I would ignore Mim until I can melee him.

I know, for sure, that I have chosen missile attacks at 20% of melee to kill Khim or Mim, and I didn't think it was a close decision, so I guessed the breakpoint is 10%. If you can phase 50 times, you only need to be able to do cumulative [with his healing] 2% of his hp between phases to eliminate him from the game and stop pissing you off. Then you head back to town to rest and requip. For someone with the phase spell plus a moderate stack of ?phase, this is entirely achievable.

It's even worse for Harowen. Even with all resists, it is nearly impossible to kill him with melee. I'd certainly use missiles at 10% of melee against him.

Missiles are overpowered because you can avoid the side effects. Change Mim's disenchantment attack to a ranged attack, and then you would consider whether to use missile or melee based upon comparative damage.

Every wargame I have ever played makes ranged attacks significantly weaker than direct attacks, I presume because all of the game designers agreed with me that it improves gameplay. Well, there are ranged nuclear attacks, but they get other side effects so you cannot use them too often.

[Magnate]

One random thought on the Ranger issue...why not have them get increments to their shooting power instead of shooting speed?

It seems reasonable that if they're that skilled with a bow, they could better aim for vulnerable parts on their targets, thereby doing more damage.

Another good idea.

[Lord Tom]

One random thought on the Ranger issue...why not have them get increments to their shooting power instead of shooting speed?

It seems reasonable that if they're that skilled with a bow, they could better aim for vulnerable parts on their targets, thereby doing more damage.

[Timo Pietilä]

How about just not allowing players to enchant missiles. What you find, or manage to buy, is what you have. No enchantment via enchant weapon, no branding by the PC.

That sounds *very* good to me. That would nerf extra shot capability nicely too, because of increased ammo breaking / monster turn. You just wouldn't have those good ammunition stacks very long, and would need to use non-enchanted stacks of arrows/bolts/shots most of the time.

That would also make *almost every* ego-ammunition find special, which is exactly what we need.

[Timo Pietilä]

I wouldn't remove the brands, but I would reduce their efficacy. I think the only time you want to remove something entirely is if no one ever uses it. If something is overpowered, you want to tweak it's power so it falls into line but still remains useful.

Problem with this approach is that every time you introduce something that is useful someone uses it no matter how broken it is considering game balance. Many powerful items are not "junk" by definition that everyone will use them when it is found, but they are "junk" by definition that they make *everything else* junk. Remove that one item, and everything else is then not junk.

Flattening things so that everything is equal is not the right thing to do. That makes game just boring. If you have one hundred items equally useful then you have succeded in making extremely boring game.

We *NEED* outrageous things. "out of balance" -things that are very unique and rare. We need dangerous monsters, things that you *CAN'T* handle by the time you first meet them, but who can't also kill you instantly unless you play foolishly and engage in fighting in impossible odds (like Greater Titans used to be). Artifacts IMO should be those outrageous things. Not common items. That is why slings of buckland must go (or change them to 1 in 100 games artifact). That is why you need removing unnecessary egos. That is why useless artifacts need to go. Just improving them makes *everything else* less useful and less unique in comparison. You can make billion paur* gauntlets that are all useful and by the time you have done so you have extremely boring set of extremely boring gauntlets. There is nothing unique in million unique items when rules of the game are relatively simple.

[Timo Pietilä]

Fine, but then you should be doing much less damage to compensate.

You'd still use missiles against Mim if they did 10% of melee, so 10% would not be underpowered from a gameplay perspective.

I hope you mean 10% less than melee. If it is 10% of melee then I would ignore Mim until I can melee him. I would then never use bow unless it gives me something special, like rDisenchantment from Belthronding or parital cover of basic4 and stats, like Amrod and Amras.

The other problem is the monster AI. Monsters are hopeless when it comes to using ranged attacks. The player's ranged attacks need to be nerfed to compensate.

I think that reducing missiles to be on par with current devices would be fine.

All that said, I don't have that much problem with the current system, except that ego ammo should not ever be for sale in town and there should be no branding spell.

Branding spell is bad thing. I have been saying that from the beginning of discovering that there was one.

If I was changing things, all missile multipliers would affect *only* base dice. Arrows should start at 1d9 in general store and go up from there with many more extra dice ammo drops. Presumably all ego ammo would have extra dice.

That could work, if balanced properly.

[Timo Pietilä]

I'd like to offer the idea that mages (and priests, as the other pure magic-using class) should receive a bonus on clvl 25 that allows them to cast 2 spells per turn &/or use magical devices twice per turn. Maybe earlier even, to encourage magic users to consider alternatives to long bows at the start of games.

clvl 25 is not start of the game, it is pretty late of the game. About half, maybe more, of the game is gone by that time, so that doesn't help to achieve your goal.

I suggest that there is rather high constant class-based bonus for priests and mages for magic devices which makes them *much* better at those than other classes, and relative difference then gets smaller when you gain levels. That would help mage and priest at the start. At the end mage should rely on spells and priest both spells and ordinary combat, with preference to spells (which is pretty much what it is now for priests).

Maybe starting kit should contain some semi-powerful device like rod of lightning bolt for mages. Priest does not need such things, because priest doesn't have hard time at the start without missile-weapons.

[Philip]

-Consider nudging overall ammo breakage down a bit; this would dovetail nicely with the decrease in launcher/ammo power that seems to be in the cards

Yes, but OTOH the decrease in power is because there will be a quiver and they are strong enough already (mages turn into rangers with better spellcasting).

[buzzkill]

Sling ammo is inherently less breakable than that of other launchers; reduce breakage for pebbles to 5%, other sling ammo to 2% or even 0% -- just how do you break an iron shot??

I feel that you have to account for loss, not just breakage. It's probably very hard to find an errant iron shot by torchlight. In any case, shot should still have a better chance of reuse than arrows/bolts.

How about just not allowing players to enchant missiles. What you find, or manage to buy, is what you have. No enchantment via enchant weapon, no branding by the PC.

[Lord Tom]

I think ammo breakage could use some tweaking (this relates indirectly to power, since you can't use a ranged attack without ammo). My ideas:

-Sling ammo is inherently less breakable than that of other launchers; reduce breakage for pebbles to 5%, other sling ammo to 2% or even 0% -- just how do you break an iron shot??

-Give mithril ammo a significantly lower breakage rate, say 33% of the non-mithril rate, perhaps decreasing mithril's damage dice to compensate.

-Consider nudging overall ammo breakage down a bit; this would dovetail nicely with the decrease in launcher/ammo power that seems to be in the cards