How to combine stacks?

[Magnate]

But there's a lot of room to be more coarse grained than currently while still smooth enough for your desired behaviour.

It still seems really weird to me to be striving for coarseness. I can't see what it gains at all. Even in v4, ten slots in the quiver is plenty - I hardly ever have to toss more than a single orphan arrow.

[fizzix]

It still seems really weird to me to be striving for coarseness. I can't see what it gains at all. Even in v4, ten slots in the quiver is plenty - I hardly ever have to toss more than a single orphan arrow.

You strive for coarseness for simplicity. If you only have 4 types of arrows it doesn't take much playing to get a good feel for how each of them behaves. This let's a player make a decision from experience on whether it's better to use or save an arrow.

If you have thousands of arrow types, you will never be able to make the decision from experience. However, you can make a calculated decision by comparing numerical values. Is this good enough? possibly. But it is a different feel.

IMO, I prefer a system where the coarseness is enough that there is a clear difference between an item and one 2-3 levels above. I think the 20-30 difference in v4 is too much (you need roughly +20 to tell from experience that a weapon is better). I also think that the 1/2 or 1/3 difference in Sil is too little (the difference between +1 and +2 is the difference between good and excellent.) It really comes down to personal preference though, and there's definitely room for every system.

[Scatha]

You strive for coarseness for simplicity. If you only have 4 types of arrows it doesn't take much playing to get a good feel for how each of them behaves. This let's a player make a decision from experience on whether it's better to use or save an arrow.

That was a very nice post and explanation, thanks.

Sil deliberately cultivates some of the feeling of being chunky and discrete (at least in places). It makes it feel a bit more like a board game. Of course that feel isn't wanted everywhere. I think there's a lot of appeal in the granularity you identify as your favoured one. It's the simplest point where the coarseness never intrudes.

I guess it would be around twice as fine-grained as Sil is, or maybe a little more. You might also have a longer game which would naturally stretch the scale at the high end. By the way, in some ways I think Angband is more coarse grained than Sil: for example resistances, both elemental and things like Free Action, have lesser effects in Sil, but stack.

[fizzix]

I guess it would be around twice as fine-grained as Sil is, or maybe a little more. You might also have a longer game which would naturally stretch the scale at the high end. By the way, in some ways I think Angband is more coarse grained than Sil: for example resistances, both elemental and things like Free Action, have lesser effects in Sil, but stack.

This is a very good point, which I hadn't appreciated until now. This is precisely why I find the resistance system in V to be imperfect. I'd much rather one where resistances stack (as in Sil) and give a percentage based value. Many variants have gone this route and it seems like the appropriate one for V as well.

[Magnate]

This is a very good point, which I hadn't appreciated until now. This is precisely why I find the resistance system in V to be imperfect. I'd much rather one where resistances stack (as in Sil) and give a percentage based value. Many variants have gone this route and it seems like the appropriate one for V as well.

Bagsy me! Me! Me!

OK, thanks for letting me do this one .....

.... FA has this and it's fantastic ;-)


On a serious note, it's good to realise that I'm quite a long way down the scale of preferring granularity. I always prefer to make decisions based on numbers than on feel or experience.

[buzzkill]

I'd much rather one where resistances stack (as in Sil) and give a percentage based value. Many variants have gone this route and it seems like the appropriate one for V as well.

I prefer this system also, but I'd never want to see it in V (well, maybe as a non-default option).

[Timo Pietilä]

This is a very good point, which I hadn't appreciated until now. This is precisely why I find the resistance system in V to be imperfect. I'd much rather one where resistances stack (as in Sil) and give a percentage based value. Many variants have gone this route and it seems like the appropriate one for V as well.

Thing in vanilla is that most things you get are on-off things. You either have it or you don't. I would go other way around and remove double-resistances. Leave immunities, because they are not "stacking resistances", but different effect completely. Also make basic 4 (5) elements consistent with the rest of them by making resistance random value instead of constant.

on-off makes item decision combination game. Stacking would make it collection game.

If there is resistance stacking then item needs PVAL to determine how much resistance it gives. Things with PVAL stack, because values are cumulative, and high-end items should have high enough PVAL to give "enough" resistance alone without anything else giving same resistance.

also stacking resistances would require major overhaul of items changing angband to something completely different.

Lets see:

Defender, Amrod, resistance rings, Amulet of resistance, Elvenkind, Colluin, Elvenkind, magi

That's 6 items with full basic 4 coverage and one that covers three of the four and two that covers something once. You could get 9 items covering single element. More if you also use lightsource, gauntlets and boots that cover some element.

[Magnate]

Thing in vanilla is that most things you get are on-off things. You either have it or you don't. I would go other way around and remove double-resistances. Leave immunities, because they are not "stacking resistances", but different effect completely. Also make basic 4 (5) elements consistent with the rest of them by making resistance random value instead of constant.

on-off makes item decision combination game. Stacking would make it collection game.

If there is resistance stacking then item needs PVAL to determine how much resistance it gives. Things with PVAL stack, because values are cumulative, and high-end items should have high enough PVAL to give "enough" resistance alone without anything else giving same resistance.

also stacking resistances would require major overhaul of items changing angband to something completely different.

Lets see:

Defender, Amrod, resistance rings, Amulet of resistance, Elvenkind, Colluin, Elvenkind, magi

That's 6 items with full basic 4 coverage and one that covers three of the four and two that covers something once. You could get 9 items covering single element. More if you also use lightsource, gauntlets and boots that cover some element.

Ah, see now this is really interesting - my love of granularity and numbers means I'd love to move everything to a pval basis - ESP range (and sensitivity), regen, SI, etc. etc. I already did this with slays and brands in v4 and I really like it. Resists would naturally work the same way.

It's easy to avoid this making it a "collection game" though. There are a finite number of slots, and item generation can be tuned to ensure that no single item (for any given slot) can provide everything that's needed. So you end up with more and more interesting choices to make: do I want this amulet that gives uber-telepathy but little else, or this one with minimal ESP but pretty good resists, or this one with no ESP at all but huge combat boosts?

But I do agree with Timo that this would remain firmly in v4!

[Timo Pietilä]

It's easy to avoid this making it a "collection game" though. There are a finite number of slots, and item generation can be tuned to ensure that no single item (for any given slot) can provide everything that's needed.

It's still collection game, you just make collecting them challenging.

Angband "needs" are very few. Angband "wants" are huge. Hunting Tarrasque? Collect items with fire and cold resistances. Just avoid monsters with other elemental attacks while using your specialized gear. Use swaps. A lot of swaps. Point being you need to collect multiple items giving same resistance instead of items giving different resistances. I would hate that.

[fizzix]

Use swaps. A lot of swaps. Point being you need to collect multiple items giving same resistance instead of items giving different resistances. I would hate that.

This is a good design point to avoid. The player should be able to reach the same rough level of resistance as is found in the current system. This means 66% resistance of the basic four and poison and something like 33% of all the higher elements with the endgame kit. 66% of the basic four should not be too difficult to obtain either, most players have it by dungeon level 30-40. (alternatively the resistance values can be less and the caps can become lower so early breathers are more dangerous.)

Game can have a total resistance cap of 90% (barring immunity) which corresponds roughly to the current 1/9 value for the basic 4. Anyway, regardless of which version goes into pyrel, it should support both. It's much easier to go to the on-off version from the pval version than vice versa (all of pvals of 66%, capped at 66%), so that's what we should design for.

[Scatha]

While there is something to be said for straight addition of percentages as being easy to read for the player, I think there are two particularly natural candidate rules for stacking values of resistances:

(A) Resistances reduce damage taken by a set amount (or a die roll), and are additive.
(B) Resistances make you take only a proportion p of the damage, and these proportions are multiplied together.

Both of these work so that multiple sources of resistance are equivalent to having each take effect in turn. I believe (B) is used in FA and some other variants. (A) is probably even simpler, and attractive in a regime like that of V4 where armour subtracts from damage taken.

Question for Timo: would you prefer the game to be more coarse-grained in other dimensions, as it is in resistances? You could do this for weapons, armour, stats, speed ...

[Derakon]

I think Timo's point can be reworded as:

The current Angband "equipment puzzle" is like trying to build a bridge with as few components as possible. You have a goal (e.g. cover all base resists, FA, and SI, then maximize everything else), and you have a collection of items, and the puzzle is to arrange your items so that they achieve the goal as "elegantly" (minimally) as possible.

This is only possible when most abilities are binary instead of additive. As soon as they become additive, you're instead left with questions like "do I value 10% more fire resistance over +2 STR?" which are much harder to answer.

So sure, switching resistances to an additive system would create more equipment questions. But you'd lose that elegance of constructing an equipment set that neatly covers everything you need with as little waste as possible. And you can't deny that doing that is fun.

[Magnate]

I think Timo's point can be reworded as:

The current Angband "equipment puzzle" is like trying to build a bridge with as few components as possible. You have a goal (e.g. cover all base resists, FA, and SI, then maximize everything else), and you have a collection of items, and the puzzle is to arrange your items so that they achieve the goal as "elegantly" (minimally) as possible.

This is only possible when most abilities are binary instead of additive. As soon as they become additive, you're instead left with questions like "do I value 10% more fire resistance over +2 STR?" which are much harder to answer.

So sure, switching resistances to an additive system would create more equipment questions. But you'd lose that elegance of constructing an equipment set that neatly covers everything you need with as little waste as possible. And you can't deny that doing that is fun.

This is a brilliant description. I don't deny that the bridge-building is fun, but personally I find it even more fun to make use of what's left over (which is what happens in the additive system).

[debo]

This is a brilliant description. I don't deny that the bridge-building is fun, but personally I find it even more fun to make use of what's left over (which is what happens in the additive system).

So basically we're arguing the merits of a constraint-satisfaction problem vs an optimization problem

[Magnate]

So basically we're arguing the merits of a constraint-satisfaction problem vs an optimization problem

Yes! Another fabulous description. And I've always really loved optimisation!