Is speed overpowered?

[Derakon]

Way back in the day, all speed boosts were +10. In fact, speed wasn't even represented by a number; you just got "fast", "very fast", "incredibly fast", etc. all the way up to "light speed" in your status line, with each new level giving you one more turn against a normal-speed opponent. I think it was Ben Harrison who switched that out to the numerical system we have now, which had the net effect of nerfing speed boosts, since now Boots/Rings of Speed were only rarely as good as they were before (generally not reaching +10). I think the additional smaller speed boosts were added in a reaction to that.

This had the secondary effect of meaning that Ringil couldn't boost any stats except for speed any more, since those stats would get a +10 boost instead of the old +1 boost.

I remember abusing Wizard Mode to give myself a ridiculous boost to speed -- I just held down the "improve speed" button for a few minutes -- and then dying of starvation on my next turn. Whoops!

Cthangband changed "attacks per round" to work more like "shots per round" does -- that is, each attack only did one melee strike, but the time taken by that strike depended on your attacks per round. This ended up making warriors significantly more powerful, for two reasons: first, they now could effectively deal with crowds -- one-shotting each orc adjacent to them before the next could move in, instead of the old "for every orc I kill, six more get to make attacks", and two, they became essentially immune to the double-move instakill, since the time in between each "turn" was so small when engaged in melee.

[konijn_]

Cthangband changed "attacks per round" to work more like "shots per round" does -- that is, each attack only did one melee strike, but the time taken by that strike depended on your attacks per round. This ended up making warriors significantly more powerful, for two reasons: first, they now could effectively deal with crowds -- one-shotting each orc adjacent to them before the next could move in, instead of the old "for every orc I kill, six more get to make attacks", and two, they became essentially immune to the double-move instakill, since the time in between each "turn" was so small when engaged in melee.

Hellband, as a descendant of Chtangband does the same, I rarely play with warrior types so I never noticed until last week where I played a Leprechaun Rogue. It is quite nice to distribute blows in a crowd.

T.

[miyazaki]

Sure I got really lucky in that game (I also found ESP very early on as well), but my point was just that speed is more powerful than any other stat in the game regardless of when you get it.

Would you rather have +10 speed or +10 any other stat? For example +10 strength would get you more blows and allow you to carry a lot more, but +10 speed lets you get twice as many blows in as well a a load of other benefits. Speed seems to be more important than strength for melee fighting, which seems a bit strange to me. Also you can't ever get +10 strength from any one piece of equipment, but you can for speed with rings, boots and some artifacts.
Also phasing and shooting becomes so much more effective when you are moving faster.

In my current game, I found a maul of extra attacks (4d4) (+8,+9) (+2) around dlvl 10. Better for melee than +10 speed! I would take a dagger of westernesse over +10 speed early in a game. Probably, some helm of telepathy as well. I think I need to start a poll to see. I agree that speed is powerful, but there are plenty of later game items that would be over powered in the early game!

[Magnate]

With ESP and +20 speed the later levels become a lot easier than earlier levels are without the bonuses in my opinion. There was talk of toning down ESP a bit and making it cumilative starting with a small detection radius. I think that is a good idea and I think something could be done to tone down speed bonuses.

You could spread the +speed around a bit more, adding a few more artifacts with +2 to +5 speed.

Er ... I just did that in the nightlies a couple of weeks ago, and it wasn't universally acclaimed. I'll be interested to see whether your views are widely shared.

[Magnate]

Cthangband changed "attacks per round" to work more like "shots per round" does -- that is, each attack only did one melee strike, but the time taken by that strike depended on your attacks per round. This ended up making warriors significantly more powerful, for two reasons: first, they now could effectively deal with crowds -- one-shotting each orc adjacent to them before the next could move in, instead of the old "for every orc I kill, six more get to make attacks", and two, they became essentially immune to the double-move instakill, since the time in between each "turn" was so small when engaged in melee.

This "fractional blows" approach is now on the to-do list for V.

[Netbrian]

I don't think Speed really needs to be changed at the moment (though fractional blows sound great). However, I really would like an indication of how much faster a character with a particular speed stat is compared to the average player. Thus, the game could display Speed +10 (+100%), indicating my speed was 100% more than the baseline.

[Derakon]

Actually, what I'd like to see is how much faster I am than a given monster. E.g. "It moves incredibly quickly (3.47 times your current speed)."

[fizzix]

Er ... I just did that in the nightlies a couple of weeks ago, and it wasn't universally acclaimed. I'll be interested to see whether your views are widely shared.

I wonder about adding speed boosts to some of the high egos. *Slay* weapons might benefit from the +2 or so speed boost that they'd get. It would add just a little bit of power to these weapons.

[shawnosullivan]

i like the speed boosts on the artifacts. not sure about adding them to egos, could be interesting, though, but maybe would necessitate a new ego type altogether or something...

definitely like the idea of monsters having a wider variety of speed intervals, +5, +10, +15, etc

[d_m]

Actually, what I'd like to see is how much faster I am than a given monster. E.g. "It moves incredibly quickly (3.47 times your current speed)."

I think giving an exact fraction is probably spoilish, but I could imagine a feature like:

"It moves slowly (about 1/2 times your current speed)"
"It moves quickly (about 2 times your current speed)"

As I'm imagining, it would divide the larger speed by the smaller, then do normal rounding (1.4 -> 1, 1.5 -> 2). As a special case for when the division ends up on 1, you could say:

"It moves ... (exactly your speed)"
"It moves ... (slightly faster than you)"
"It moves ... (slightly slower than you)"

This way people could easily figure out from looking at a monster whether they can outrun it or not. Although maybe part of the fun is trying to run away and see which things are gaining on you!

EDIT: Even just saying (faster than your current speed) or (slower than your current speed) would probably help new players.

[Derakon]

Well, I don't have a big problem with spoilers in the monster memory, since it's basically there to provide "spoilers" the player has already learned about the monster. Sure, it's a spoiler to know ahead of time that Mim hits to disenchant or that Tselakus can summon Ringwraiths, but it's not a big deal to know that once they've already done it to you. Monster speed is directly observable and you could calculate it pretty accurately within a few turns of seeing the monster move, so why not have the computer do it for you?

[fizzix]

I think giving an exact fraction is probably spoilish, but I could imagine a feature like:

I certainly don't think this is a spoiler at all. At least I feel that this is more likely to be apparent than damage per blow, which is calculated for you.

Converting speed to energy is a complicated and mostly arbitrary calculation. Furthermore it's a very apparent effect not a background effect. These are the types of things that would benefit the most from being transparent without spoiling the game.

[Magnate]

I'm pretty sure there is already a ticket for this (relative speed display), but I can't find it. Ho hum.

[Marble Dice]

I'm pretty sure there is already a ticket for this (relative speed display), but I can't find it. Ho hum.

Dunno about a ticket, but here's the thread:

http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=2444

[TJS]

Actually thinking about it, playing as a warrior I think I'd rather +10 speed rather than +10 in all the other stats at the beginning of the game (and for a fairly long period after it).

Sure you'd do more damage per round and have more hit points with all other stats +10, but you would have (more than) twice the chance of escaping any very dangerous situations with the extra speed.

In fact for a starting half-troll warrior adding 8 points to the following stats gives you:

consitution 15 -> 18/50: Takes HP from 21 to 23
strength 18/10-> 18/90: To hit/dam goes from (+1,+2) to (+4, +5)
dexterity 8 -> 16: To hit/dam goes from (+1,+2) to (+2,+2)

Although I appreciate that HP goes up more with Constitution as you get to higher levels and also str/dex give you more blows as well as other benefits, but overall I don't think any of them do enough in comparison to a similar increase in speed.

Wisdom 6 -> 14 raises saving throw from 11% to 12%
Intelligence 4->12 raises Magic Device value from 10 to 11 and disarming 16% to 17%

Overall it doesn't seem anywhere near as good as moving at double speed (wisdom and intelligence boosts are amazingly low if you ask me and need upping I'd say).

Also there are other benefits from speed, such as moving around the level faster and therefore less potentially dangerous monsters waking up. All the best artifacts seem to be the ones with large speed bonuses attached to them.

Speed could maybe be toned down by reducing your to-hit values at higher speeds, and for casters reducing the success rate of spells.

This could be partially offset by increasing the effect of individual stats, so that an increase in dexterity would increase your to-hit value more than it currently does. After all, if you're moving faster than you'd imagine that you'd need more dexterity to be as accurate with your blows/shots.

You could then give speed boosts on items at lower levels (especially +1 and +2 speed boosts to various items).

It would probably make the start of the game slightly easier and the later game a bit harder, but I don't see that as an entirely bad thing (I've seen various reports of the game getting easier after a certain point).