to_hit

**PowerDiver** · June 27, 2011, 17:03

Originally posted by jens

As noted in this post (and others), player ac and monster to_hit are not in balance. I'm considering tweaking the values involved, and have just started looking at the code. I believe I'll be able to find a suitable tweak to fit our needs.

The reason they are out of balance is because someone broke the balance. There is no need for tweaking. Simply revert the change(s) boosting player AC.

**Magnate** · June 27, 2011, 17:31

Originally posted by PowerDiver

The reason they are out of balance is because someone broke the balance. There is no need for tweaking. Simply revert the change(s) boosting player AC.

Don't be an idiot. The changes to player AC were designed to address a completely different problem, of heavy armour never being used in preference to light armour. They've solved that problem, but created this one (which, it is worth noting, has taken the best part of a year to become a high-profile issue). Jens is helpfully suggesting an approach (or three) to solving this new problem without re-creating the old one.

@Jens: given that this will need looking at again when combat mechanics are changed, I suggest that your per-problem approach would be best in the meantime (changes to SHATTER, titans etc.).

**Derakon** · June 27, 2011, 17:38

It should be fairly straightforward to compare player AC across versions by taking a look at the AC of winners on the ladder and use that to come up with the adjustment factor. Would that not work?

**jens** · June 27, 2011, 23:21

Originally posted by Derakon

It should be fairly straightforward to compare player AC across versions by taking a look at the AC of winners on the ladder and use that to come up with the adjustment factor. Would that not work?

That should be suitable, could you check it? In any case I feel using an adjustment factor is the most suitable method. Per case might fix the high end problems best, but that just means that players will wade through monsters and then not report that the big guys were push overs. But they did get there too easy...

Otherwise I'm thinking in the terms of 1.5 as the factor. Magnate, how much did you adjust the values for damage absorption?

**Derakon** · June 28, 2011, 01:51

Checking the ladder is slightly more complicated than I expected since, as far as I can tell, there's no way to split out winners by version. I'd rather not run a screenscraper to download all 12k+ dumps on the Vanilla ladder either. I'll give it some thought, though; perhaps a solution will present itself.

**camlost** · June 28, 2011, 03:59

Originally posted by Derakon

Checking the ladder is slightly more complicated than I expected since, as far as I can tell, there's no way to split out winners by version. I'd rather not run a screenscraper to download all 12k+ dumps on the Vanilla ladder either. I'll give it some thought, though; perhaps a solution will present itself.

Maybe the illustrious Pav could export the data for you or make it available in bulk some other way (that still prevents scammers from getting the results)?

(the oook board might be a faster place to get a reply?)

**buzzkill** · June 28, 2011, 04:10

Would be that hard to add an option to the ladder to sort by version number, or filter, a few check boxes maybe.

**jens** · June 28, 2011, 15:02

Guess it was a bad idea to split the thread in two...

Just checked the old code. The change in armour reducing damage was from 250 to 400. So a factor of 1.6. I'll use 1.5, because then we are a little on the safe side, plus then I just change 3/4 to 1/2, very neat :-) monster ac will get in line with player ac as well. Today the best monster ac is the Cat Lord with 200, he will get 300, Morgoth will get 225

I am going away over the weekend, and have some things to prepare, plus I am busy today, so: I'll code/test/push this tomorrow. However I will not have the time to make any comparison tables as Magnate wished. A simple calculation with one example though: Atlas that started this thread.

Comparing Atlas vs player with AC 300, and AC 150. Current system, and deflated by factor 1.5.

### Current
vs AC 300
two attacks that hit 10.2%
two attacks that hit 25.8%
avg: 18.0%

vs AC 150
two attacks that hit 55.3%
two attacks that hit 63.1%
avg: 59.2%

### Deflated
vs AC 300
two attacks that hit 40.1%
two attacks that hit 50.5%
avg: 45.3%

vs AC 150
two attacks that hit 70.1%
two attacks that hit 75.3%
avg: 72.7%

###
As you can see it is only in the end of the AC scale that this change would have relevant consequences, so I believe this can be introduced even this late into 3.3.

edit: corrected an error in calculation. Should only doo this kind of post at home I guess

**d_m** · June 28, 2011, 17:08

Originally posted by jens

As you can see it is only in the end of the AC scale that this change would have relevant consequences, so I believe this can be introduced even this late into 3.3.

edit: corrected an error in calculation. Should only doo this kind of post at home I guess

Thanks for doing this analysis.

I will have to look at this more closely and playtest it a bit, but since our goal was to make the game harder with 3.3 I think it would be nice to try to do something like this.

Not sure how Takkaria, Magnate, et al feel about it though.

**jens** · June 28, 2011, 17:58

OK, I couldn't quite leave it... And I realised I made another general mistake in my Atlas calculations. In any case here are a couple of examples of some creatures, and some ac against them.

Code:

		lvl	Power				|	AC	Current	Deflated
Morgoth		100	60	60	2	15	|	300	34,0%	54,4%
		100	60	60	2	15	|	200	54,4%	67,9%
		100	60	60	2	15	|	100	74,7%	81,5%

Greater Balrog	79	10	10	60	15	|	300	16,9%	42,9%
		79	10	10	60	15	|	200	42,9%	60,3%
		79	10	10	60	15	|	100	69,0%	77,6%

Atlas		76	60	10	60	10	|	300	17,3%	43,2%
		76	60	10	60	10	|	200	43,2%	60,5%
		76	60	10	60	10	|	100	69,1%	77,7%

Master lich	41	5	15	0	0	|	150	16,1%	42,1%
		41	5	15	0	0	|	100	42,1%	59,8%
		41	5	15	0	0	|	50	68,9%	77,4%

Stone giant	33	60	60			|	150	31,6%	52,5%
		33	60	60			|	100	52,5%	66,7%
		33	60	60			|	50	74,1%	80,8%

Uruk		16	60	60			|	75	48,3%	64,2%
		16	60	60			|	50	64,2%	74,2%
		16	60	60			|	25	80,0%	85,0%

Bullroarer	5	60	60			|	45	55,4%	68,6%
		5	60	60			|	30	68,6%	77,0%
		5	60	60			|	15	81,8%	86,6%

Jackal		1	60				|	45	47,9%	63,6%
		1	60				|	30	63,6%	73,6%
		1	60				|	15	79,3%	85,0%

Floating eye	1	2				|	20	5,0%	5,0%
		1	2				|	7	5,0%	41,0%
		1	2				|	0	95,0%	95,0%

**jens** · June 28, 2011, 18:04

One thing to keep in mind here is that the current combat system breaks at the edges. In most of the numbers I have posted above this is not visible. I mentioned that it's only in the end of the AC scale that problems arise. Well what I mean is that in the end of the scale, compared with the monster you are currently fighting, which for a floating eye is 7 ac :-) My change does not fix that problem, but it stretches out the range.

I set some arbitrary AC values, and calculated against those, but if you get higher AC the numbers can drop quite quickly.

**d_m** · June 28, 2011, 18:28

Do you have a script that you're generating these numbers with?

If so, it'd be nice to have a CSV file with the same AC ranges for all the monsters (and maybe an even larger monster selection).

If not, don't worry about it.

**Derakon** · June 28, 2011, 18:43

It'd be awesome if chance-to-hit was included with the damage in monster melee memory. E.g. "He can hit to shatter with damage 12d12 and hit chance 65%..."

**Magnate** · June 28, 2011, 20:30

Originally posted by Derakon

It'd be awesome if chance-to-hit was included with the damage in monster melee memory. E.g. "He can hit to shatter with damage 12d12 and hit chance 65%..."

We considered that when we added your chance to hit monsters into the recall. The difference is that monster AC is constant, so you can be assumed to be able to estimate your chance to hit it as your own prowess increases. Your AC varies wildly with kit swaps, and it gives way too much information away if you can instantly check the effect on monsters hitting you. One for "info mode", but not for normal play.

I'm afraid I don't really like the idea of inflating monster AC to rebalance to-hit. I fully accept that monster melee needs rebalancing, I just think that Jens's other ideas were better. I think it would be better to inflate monster attack skill by a constant factor (e.g. instead of 3x level + attack_type_constant, make it 5x level and adjust the constants). Since Jens already has the spreadsheet for various monsters it should be reasonably easy to adjust this way.

to_hit

to_hit

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