Poll: do you want to change combat mechanics for heavy weapons?

[Lord Fell]

Those who followed the "Make Angband Harder" thread will know that I was a major proponent of a change to the combat system. Naturally, I'm happy this is getting a review and discussion.

I haven't actually tried 3.2 yet, I'm going to wait until it's a bit more stable. since I'm not much of a coder, I'm not likely to contribute much to the bug-find/fix process. I don't want to just jump in and say "yes, import O-style combat modifiers" until I actually try fractional blows in 3.2; as Timo said, it might be enough.

I think part of why this is a burning issue for me, is I do tend to play a lot of warriors, and I think they are hit hardest by the light-weight bias that has been traditional in Vanilla. Although I haven't tried it at all, and am just going by Timo's description of a Matrix-Like "Bullet Time" scenario... I wonder if Fractional Blows is maybe something that Warriors should get exclusively -basically, instead of magic, warriors are just plain better fighters (as they should be).

The O-style weight system could still be applied to the game, for all classes.

[dos350]

eek i voted no frac is enough but i maybe should have voted go back, i dont really get wat frac is all about or watever hoo but i knda read this and it saying things like main gauche better , cry cry- is good as is imo~ why need changing??

if get good blade it giv good blow if you are good anyway dont it lol eek?

sorry im new, but this game is dear to me- any changing is scary eeee~~

[ewert]

Voted for frac-blows is enough.

Fracblows + damage display that is. Much more easy now to see the effect of slays, weapon weight and crits on average damage. Having a proper brand/slay and even normal weight weapon kicks most daggers butts, and now with fracblows it usually is better even at start. A heavy branded weapon can get 30+dmg per blow right from the get-go, and even with 1.3 blows it tends to overdamage daggers unless you have lucky early +dmg finds.

[bulian]

I like the fractional blows change. A simple addendum I would make is to change +blows items to be percentage based as well. For example, haradrim shield provides 25% damage increase for casters but only 16% for warriors. Similarly, belthronding bow is 100% increase in shooting damage for everyone but rangers.

[Magnate]

I like the fractional blows change. A simple addendum I would make is to change +blows items to be percentage based as well. For example, haradrim shield provides 25% damage increase for casters but only 16% for warriors. Similarly, belthronding bow is 100% increase in shooting damage for everyone but rangers.

Yup. That's ticket #1233, currently scheduled for 3.4 (but that could mean anything).

[tg122]

I voted for damage as a percentage.

Additionally, I think it would be nice to implement one handed vs. two handed weapons similar to FA where if you're wielding a 2 handed weapon, you wear your shield on your back and forego the armor class bonus of your shield. Wearing the shield on your back would still give you other bonuses/resistances, you just wouldn't get the armor class bonus because you're not holding it in your hand.

[Frood]

1) Cap max enchantment of weapons at some fraction (e.g. half) the weapon's max damage roll. For example, 1d4 daggers max at +2,+2, 6d5 blades of chaos max at +15,+15. Make it hard for the game to generate non-artifact weapons that break this rule. Functionally this means that on-weapon enchantments can increase your damage by ~50%.

I like this idea better than changing what (+x,+x) means. Its more intuitive to just add the number to the dice than to try to multiply the dice with a percentage. Sure you can enter the 'I'nspect screen but given the number of weapons to evaluate during a game it would be better to have a more transparent system.

[Atarlost]

I think a new setup is needed. O combat makes damage difficult to predict. V combat is counter-intuitive. I'd start over designing it as if it were a table top system to keep complexity down. Probably weight should be meaningless, except to determine if a weapon is too cumbersome to use at all, and loose size categories used instead (possibly as few as one or two handed). I like the d20 idea of additional blows having declining chances to hit as well.

I'd try to mix the influence of skill from Runequest with the weapon variance of d20 for a critical system. There are probably plenty of other ideas out there from systems I haven't seen.

[Nick]

I haven't voted (not least because I haven't played V with fractional blows), but I would be inclined to vote against O-combat. I like O-combat, but I also like V/NPP combat, and I think on the whole I'd rather keep both varieties alive.

[will_asher]

I haven't voted (not least because I haven't played V with fractional blows), but I would be inclined to vote against O-combat. I like O-combat, but I also like V/NPP combat, and I think on the whole I'd rather keep both varieties alive.

I agree. but I also didn't vote because I haven't played V in a long time.

[Lord Fell]

eek i voted no frac is enough but i maybe should have voted go back, i dont really get wat frac is all about or watever hoo but i knda read this and it saying things like main gauche better , cry cry- is good as is imo~ why need changing??

if get good blade it giv good blow if you are good anyway dont it lol eek?

sorry im new, but this game is dear to me- any changing is scary eeee~~

I interpreted this to mean "I don't understand what's going on, so I voted almost at random."

I did decide to vote, although I haven't as of yet tried 3.2 with Fractionals. Part of the reason was to counter-act Dos350's vote. What I was also thinking was that while Fractional Blows might make life easier for Warriors, or at least make them more dangerous, but Fractional Blows is a change to the mechanic, where I think that there should be a fundamental change to the way weapon damage is determined.

In the future, we might determine that Fractional Blows is too powerful... but I think that a change to make heavier weapons more viable should still be implemented.

[Timo Pietilä]

In the future, we might determine that Fractional Blows is too powerful... but I think that a change to make heavier weapons more viable should still be implemented.

In practice you hardly notice it. It is very well done. Main thing where you notice the biggest difference is fighting a lots of weak opponents like with clvl 50 warrior with multi-blow randart against orc pit.

That said, I agree that o-combat model, when done right, is a ultimate goal. OTOH it is such a big change that it requires a lot of balancing rework, which is not easy to do.

So: Fractional blows is enough for now. O-combat can come later.

[Magnate]

In practice you hardly notice it. It is very well done.

Thanks!

That said, I agree that o-combat model, when done right, is a ultimate goal. OTOH it is such a big change that it requires a lot of balancing rework, which is not easy to do.

So: Fractional blows is enough for now. O-combat can come later.

Well the point of this poll is to take the temperature of how soon we might reach "later". Once 3.2 is out there will be a long period of many changes before things settle down again for 3.3 (or later, if takk decides to release 3.3 as a beta) - this long period is exactly the right sort of opportunity for introducing a change this big and making sure it gets lots of testing and balance adjustment.

Since over 2/3rds of people want to see a change in this direction, I am sorely tempted to publish an 'o-combat' branch on github for people to test. It will be up to takk when to pull those changes into nightlies - I won't do that until he wants them in.

[Timo Pietilä]

Thanks!Well the point of this poll is to take the temperature of how soon we might reach "later". Once 3.2 is out there will be a long period of many changes before things settle down again for 3.3 (or later, if takk decides to release 3.3 as a beta) - this long period is exactly the right sort of opportunity for introducing a change this big and making sure it gets lots of testing and balance adjustment.

Since over 2/3rds of people want to see a change in this direction, I am sorely tempted to publish an 'o-combat' branch on github for people to test. It will be up to takk when to pull those changes into nightlies - I won't do that until he wants them in.

That branch-approach is exactly what I proposed a few posts ago. A sister project done at the same time as main project for playtesting.

It is not just "getting items look the same", but also requires some rethinking which weapons should be the great ones and which not. I think we need also discussion about that for o-combat here.

[Magnate]

It is not just "getting items look the same", but also requires some rethinking which weapons should be the great ones and which not. I think we need also discussion about that for o-combat here.

Agreed. I think weapon dice would need revising as well as weights. And critical hits need rewriting, of course. Quite a lot of changes, all linked to the damage dealt by melee weapons (and the display of that damage).

And in fact this will impact on missile combat too. Dammit.