Is speed overpowered?

[Atarlost]

If it's only movement that changes speed with the speed flag that's not a big problem. You just need to make it clear that speed is movement speed only. Making something that speeds up spellcasting or any other individual action would be no more difficult to explain to the player than the extra shots flag.

[fizzix]

I just had a idea of a way I think might be good to tone down speed a little:
Instead of directly giving you more energy, speed makes movement and certain other actions use less energy, but certain other actions (like casting spells) would not be any faster. Instead, you could have a spell which makes spellcasting take less energy to even that out a little, but some actions would never take less than the normal energy (if you eat or drink too fast, you might choke).

This is a big can of worms that I'm not sure you want to open. If spells take longer than attacks, you've just made many attack spells useless. Furthermore, to avoid opacity you need to be up front about how much each maneuver costs. Angband is not realistic in all actions taking the same amount of time, but it keeps you from getting bogged down with annoying calculations in decision making.

(most knights would take several hours to put on their suits of armor, @ can take off one and put on another in just one turn!)

[will_asher]

I just had a idea of a way I think might be good to tone down speed a little:
Instead of directly giving you more energy, speed makes movement and certain other actions use less energy, but certain other actions (like casting spells) would not be any faster. Instead, you could have a spell which makes spellcasting take less energy to even that out a little, but some actions would never take less than the normal energy (if you eat or drink too fast, you might choke).

[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).

[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

[Magnate]

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

[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.

[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?

[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.

[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

[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.

[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)."

[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.

[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.

[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.