A Few Questions/Observations From an Old Player

[DaviddesJ]

I look forward to it happening here - you're 0 for 2 so far but it's early days yet.

I'm wrong pretty often, maybe more as I get older, but it still generally takes me more than two tries.

This past weekend was my 50th birthday, I attended my 30th reunion at MIT and I was elected to the board of the university. So I'm in a pretty good mood regardless of what people say on the internets. But it would be nice if we could all get along, especially if we enjoy the same things. I do rub some people the wrong way, I know that much.

I'll try to make some more mistakes soon. Almost everyone here knows more about modern Angband than I do, I'm sure it will happen.

[Timo Pietilä]

The base damage doesn't get "added twice" with ordinary arrows. You get x3 damage from the x3 launcher, but you don't count the base damage again when firing ordinary arrows.

Of course because then there is only one multiplier in effect. Except in case when slay is in shooter.

The base damage also doesn't get "added twice" with branded arrows. You add elemental damage from the branding, but you still don't count the base damage twice.

Says you. Code disagrees.

The base damage also doesn't get "added twice" when using slay melee weapons. They can get x3 base damage from the slay power, but they don't count the base damage twice.

Melee-weapons use completely different rules, there the "base" is only dice.

It's hard to see why slay arrows should be the only case where, in addition to the slay bonus, you increase the damage by adding the base damage twice.

Because slay and shooter multiplier are two different effects. If you are too stupid to understand this point of view, then it's your problem. I'm done repeating this. I think everyone else has already understood what is the case here.

[Timo Pietilä]

I was watching a pigeon fly into a glass window the other day. It tried over & over again without getting anywhere. For some reason the 2 of you arguing reminded me of this.

DaviddesJ is just proving Magnates point here. Don't worry, I'm not going to continue this.

[DaviddesJ]

I would say that "those who disagree with me are stupid" is the kind of argument we could do without.

[Oramin]

Ok, you two, I've started a new thread for the two of you. Take your "discussion" over there.

[Oramin]

So, how exactly are the high scores determined?

My Kobold Warrior just finished at about 4 million turns (by far the fastest) and is in 6th place. My Dwarf Priest and H-T Warrior are at about 5.7 million turns and are in 1st and 2nd. The others are on the order of 10 million+ turns.

[Derakon]

I'm pretty sure that Vanilla's scoring algorithm is bogus. I think it mostly just takes into account your experience and max depth.

Take heart -- it used to take into account your money!

[HugoVirtuoso]

I'm pretty sure that Vanilla's scoring algorithm is bogus. I think it mostly just takes into account your experience and max depth.

Take heart -- it used to take into account your money!

I wonder if Vanilla takes into account the # of uniques killed as well as artifacts collected?

[Derakon]

Hm, looks like points are actually pretty simple; in score.c the function total_points() just returns (max experience + 100 * max depth).

So there you go. Experience and max depth, that's it.

[Oramin]

Hmm, thanks. Guess if I want to run up the score I should Grond several levels of monsters.

I'm a bit surprised that speed doesn't play a factor.

[Raxmei]

I'd have been surprised if speed did play a factor. The scoring just tells you how much dungeon you've murdered your way through. Experience as a measure of challenges overcome and depth as a general indicator of progress does that very simply. The practice of speed play wasn't ascendant back when I started playing to the point that penalizing score for slow cautious playing would have raised complaints.

[Oramin]

I wasn't thinking so much of a slowness penalty as a reward for efficient slaughter. For example, if 2 players rack up the same amount of experience, shouldn't the one who finishes in, for example, 5 million turns get a higher score than the one who finishes in 10 million turns?

So, basically, I was expecting a formula which factored in experience per unit time.

Also, don't Winners get a bonus? With that formula, somebody could kill a bunch of monsters and die to Sauron/Morgoth but still have a higher score than somebody who actually wins the game.

[Derakon]

Also, don't Winners get a bonus? With that formula, somebody could kill a bunch of monsters and die to Sauron/Morgoth but still have a higher score than somebody who actually wins the game.

No bonus for winners. I've had exactly that scenario happen to me.

Honestly the takeaway here is "Don't pay too much attention to scores."

[DaviddesJ]

Once upon a time I think Angband did have gold scoring, presumably inherited from Rogue where it made (slightly) more sense. I suspect I hold the all-time world-record score in Rogue 5.3, although the servers are long gone.

[LostTemplar]

Two differents sources of x3 multiplyer can logically produce x3 if the dont stack, x5 if bonuses add or x9 if they multiply, I cannot imagine any way to get x6. Just blindly adding values is definitely wrong, since it will result in x1 slays adding up.