These are pretty rare. I don't find one of them very often. They'll get even scarcer once ego items get rarer. I don't think these are much of a problem, but wouldn't mind them turning into an artifact.
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.
I have no problem with this. I'd instead vote for a spell that makes ammo signifcantly harder to break or have it ignore acid/fire. It especially makes little sense for mages to have this ability.
I'd also add an additional to-hit penalty for long range missiles.
Again, removing something because it's overpowered, IMO, isn't the way to go. Tweak it. Holy Might missiles are exceedingly rare, I don't find them every game. If I do, I may not even have a good launcher to use them for. These should be a powerful weapon because of their rarity. But I still wouldn't mind lessening their effect.
About Ranger:
Ranger should be the archer class. Missile weapons should be their primary damage mode. Missile weapons should be a secondary damage mode for most other classes, except possibly rogues where missiles and melee could be about the same. Priests and paladins should have primary damage from melee and Mages should have primary damage from magic. The problem right now is that Mages and Rogues favor archery over their other modes and that Priests and Paladins are just as likely to choose archery over melee.
TJS makes two good points about missile weapons. One is that they do more damage than magic devices. Most rods and wands of elemental bolts are junk because by the time you find them, you are already doing more damage from unenchanted arrows. This is a problem.
The second is that because of their ranged nature they are a very powerful attack. Monsters waste turns moving towards you while you snipe away. There are several solutions for this that don't even involve adjusting missile damage. You can change the AI so that monsters are much more likely to use a ranged attack/spell if you use a ranged attack, or use teleport-to if they have it. Monsters currently favor advancing towards @ even if their most powerful attack is a ranged breath attack. Missiling Huan to death is a lot harder if he keeps on breathing after every shot. You can add a monster spell that halves missile damage and then allow monsters to cast it if they've lost 30-50% of health and have just been hit by a ranged attack.
-
I think they are overpowered from a gameplay point of view, because you can do almost as much damage as melee, without having to worry about the effects of monsters getting close ie. reduce stat, reduce exp, drain charges etc. etc.
To balance ranged weapons with melee you really need to either reduce their damage output or give more monsters the ability to do those things from a distance and also reduce the chances of them doing so when you are up close (so they melee you instead).
Another advantage with ranged weapons is that an extra shot can double the damage that you deal each turn. It can also mean that you can shoot once and move/heal/escape as well, which isn't possible with melee.
Also I like the newer brands of ammo/weapon that you get because it creates more interesting choices about what to keep. After all each different ammo type takes a different slot in your inventory.
If the newer brands make the game too easy then I'd rather see the game made harder in other ways rather than reduce the possible strategic choices.
Another way in which ranged weapons are overpowered is that they can do much more damage than the best magic devices. Good magic devices seem only to do around 125 damage at a push. This means that it is better for mages to use a ranged weapon than say a rod of acid bolts in many situations, which somehow doesn't seem right.
PS If we're going to have quivers then I would suggest that having two or more types of ammo in a quiver reduces that slots maximum capacity by a significant amount (maybe to 40 instead of 99).Last edited by TJS; December 1, 2009, 12:12.Leave a comment:
-
Missile weapons overpowered or not
I'd like to start a philosophical discussion about missile weapon power.
I think current maintainer or at least developers think that missile weapons are overpowered. I don't agree. There is one special case and that is Ranger.
After all bows/slings/xbows are very deadly if they can hit you, just like in reality. Three arrows to the body of a man/orc/whatever kills it just as likely as three partially blocked blows from a sword in melee. Melee should be stronger, but not much stronger, and that is what the case is now.
I think missile weapons are good as they are if we:
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)
c) remove ammo branding in spells.
d) new one: either make shooting at point blank very very difficult or disallow it completely.
b2) in old days brands contained only fire, electricity and cold. Acid and poison didn't exist. We could remove acid-brand from ammunition. In fact I would remove it from melee-weapons too (Sauron). There were no "holy might" ammo, so that should go too.
About Ranger:
Ranger is special case and should remain so. Because ranger is very good with bows I recommend tweaking other aspects of ranger. I think ranger and rogue spell lists should be swapped, with minor tweaks in detection where rogue should remain better. Ranger should be closer to warrior than rogue IMO.
Leave a comment: