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Really the only argument I can give against linearization is that I'd have to figure out where all the breakpoints are all over again because I'm used to the current system. Realistically we should probably linearize everything...and maybe get rid of the 18/220 cap while we're at it.
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The 18/%% system was incorporated for the AD&D "Unearthed Arcana" supplement, for the Cavalier character class, for Strength, Dexterity and Constitution. I don't entirely remember how it worked, but I believe that they could gain a d10 to their percentile stat every time they leveled... allowing them to increase their physical stats "to human perfection" as they gained levels. From there, it was incorporated into Strength... mostly because it was impossible to tell which of two meaty, 18 Strength warriors was actually stronger.
I should think that since D&D shelved percentile strength stats back around '99, Angband doesn't really have a historical reason to use it anymore either.Comment
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You have it backwards. The original 1E Players Handbook had percentile STR for Fighters, Paladins and Rangers only, and only for a base STR of 18. Unearthed Arcana, which was released nearly a decade later, added percentiles for other stats for the Cavalier and Paladin, but the implementation was different. There was no difference between a stat of 14 and one of 14/99, it was simply a mechanism of allowing those classes to increase their stats on level-up (by 2d10 percentage points).
That's my recollection of ~25 years ago, anyway.
There is already a ticket to linearise the stats, btw, so there's no real disagreement about this. It's just a matter of priority - it's a largely cosmetic change, so it's always going to get put off if something more important or exciting needs doing."Been away so long I hardly knew the place, gee it's good to be back home" - The BeatlesComment
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Just a quick note to say that the changes of fractal blows and the new multipliers for ranged attacks (arrows/bolts/etc...) are brilliant. I haven't had a chance to look at the rest of the changes, but those are great ideas.NPPAngband current home page: http://nppangband.bitshepherd.net/
Source code repository:
https://github.com/nppangband/NPPAngband_QT
Downloads:
https://app.box.com/s/1x7k65ghsmc31usmj329pb8415n1ux57Comment
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Fractal blows!
You hit the kobold. -more-
You hit the kobold. -more-
You hit the kobold. -more-
...
You hit the kobold. -more-
...Comment
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+1 to linearize the stats. I have a half-made variant of Hengband where I switched to linear stats, it wasn't very difficult or time-consuming.
I'll install Git and see if I can whip up a patch for this.Comment
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The main thing with linearized stats is that we'd need to rework stat gain post-18. If you assign 18/10 => 19, 18/20 => 20, etc, then currently characters zip through the area between 18 and 27 unusually quickly, and then it takes several potions to hit 28 (speaking about internal stats here). Ideally IMO each potion should correspond to a single point gain. Certainly you shouldn't drink a potion and see no apparent improvement -- going from 18/90 to 18/95 would seem to do nothing with linearized stats.Comment
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With linear stats you just remove the checks for if the stat is >= 18 so it always behaves like stats from 3-18. Ninja'd. Oh well.Comment
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I'd prefer the "percentages" to be dropped, but I also like that at high levels potions have lesser effect.
So my ideal solution (and I used this in Cthangband) was to leave the underlying value with the same 3-118 range and leave bonuses as they are, but simply change the display code so that instead of displaying anything above 18 as percentages, it instead gets displayed as whole numbers up to 40.
It's a really trivial change to make, and doesn't affect any kind of game balance because all that's changing is the way numbers are displayed.Comment
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Excellent, thank you for the update. We have only two known bugs left and then 3.2 can be released.
The double-tile-breaks-macros thing we have diagnosed: the redraw mega-hack in screen_load(). It's just a case of thinking up a solution that doesn't break big tiles.
The p-not-recognising-inscriptions thing is easily fixable, but we've decided to unify the p and m commands to sort it properly. Priests and paladins have no fear: the class pref files will automatically map p to m, so your muscle memory (and inscriptions) will work fine.
So hopefully we'll be releasing some time in the next couple of days, unless any more major bugs arise."Been away so long I hardly knew the place, gee it's good to be back home" - The BeatlesComment
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