Elements, resistances and side effects

[fizzix]

And I mean, if you're running around with bad stealth and lousy monster detection and aren't paying attention to your sight lines then frankly at some point the game has to stop giving you freebies. Players have to learn not to play recklessly somehow, right?

I disagree with this, because the characters that have traditionally bad stealth (priests, paladins) are precisely the ones that are most vulnerable to getting hit by a drolem. Make them evil and it solves a decent chunk of the problems.

I've died to drolems 3 times, twice it was off screen unresisted insta-death. One was a mage character and it (likely) spawned in an area that I had recently cleared out. The other was a priest and I just rounded a corner to run right into it. Maybe I was more unlucky than most. But regardless, the only reason it's not more deaths is because I know that if I see a drolem, I flee the level. It doesn't matter how much loot there is nearby. The risk is never worth it. That makes it boring. (I think the only other monsters with 3+ kills are gravity hounds and Azriel)

The AMHD is a problem because there's a much stronger precedent that's set, so that some flavortext in the description doesn't over-ride it. The player has experienced both multi-hued versions of lesser dragons. And single colored versions of ancient dragons. You cannot fault the player for making the inference that an AMHD is about half as strong as it actually is. It is the most logical inference. AMHDs are also level fleeing monsters, which is why I don't think they're interesting. At least I usually can detect those, so I can handle them somewhat. The AMHD would still be a dangerous and pain-in-the-butt monster if it had 1000 Hp instead of 1800.

[Nick]

So since we're talking about drolems, it should be no surprise that I think they are indicative of poor game design.

AMHDs are bad design because they are so much harder than the normal coloured versions. Those have 600-800 HP, the AMHD has 1800. None of the weaker dragons (baby, young, mature) have such a step up between them and the multi-hued. Also, the AMHD resists almost every element, so it's effective HP is even higher. This is bad design as well.

If you had said unfair design, I might agree

As I have said elsewhere, a lot of Angband players are masochists - the game kind of selects that way. Why else would you play a game that has no graphics, takes forever, and you can lose in the blink of an eye by tiredness or inattention or a typo?

As far as game design goes, my view is that logic (and you will notice I'm not arguing with your logic...) doesn't always rule. Drolems and AMHDs are kind of iconic in Angband, which indicates to me that they possess some quality which somehow typifies the spirit of the game. I'd be really reluctant to mess with them.

All that said, drolems are native to DL70 in FA. Go figure

[fizzix]

If you had said unfair design, I might agree

I think unfair design is bad design though.

As I have said elsewhere, a lot of Angband players are masochists - the game kind of selects that way. Why else would you play a game that has no graphics, takes forever, and you can lose in the blink of an eye by tiredness or inattention or a typo?

The fact that roguelikes set you back to the beginning after death is sort of liberating for me. It's not masochistic at all, so I don't agree with your stereotype.

That begin said, if we're thinking global design considerations we should make a decision about whether unfair instant deaths are allowed or not allowed. If they are allowed, what percentage of games should end in an unfair instant death. (you alluded to this in your all games are winnable with perfect play stuff) Right now Angband is actually extremely low on the unfair deaths. Much lower than say, Tome4 or something. All games where you get past dlevel 1 are winnable, and some very large percentage are winnable with forced descent (I'm guessing this is close to 100% also, especially if you use LoS abuse on Morgoth). So this actually makes the unfair instances stand out a little more.

Deaths that piss me off are unfair ones and ones that are caused by mistyping. So I would welcome changes that reduce those too. (I think most people would welcome UI improvements that limit deaths to mistyping, but that's another discussion)

As far as game design goes, my view is that logic (and you will notice I'm not arguing with your logic...) doesn't always rule. Drolems and AMHDs are kind of iconic in Angband, which indicates to me that they possess some quality which somehow typifies the spirit of the game. I'd be really reluctant to mess with them.

They are iconic for being unfair (read: poorly designed). I don't think that's a good thing. AMHD's would still be iconic if they were 1000 HP. Drolems would still be iconic if they were evil.

All that said, drolems are native to DL70 in FA. Go figure

Where they should be.

[Derakon]

I disagree with this, because the characters that have traditionally bad stealth (priests, paladins) are precisely the ones that are most vulnerable to getting hit by a drolem. Make them evil and it solves a decent chunk of the problems.

Of course, warriors are still hosed, but hey, screw warriors, am I right?

You seem to have a much lower "flee the level" threshold than I do. It's rare that a single enemy will convince me to get off the level; the only one I can think of offhand is Maeglin, who is functionally a mini-Morgoth complete with the ability to tunnel through walls, making it very hard to stay away from him. Usually, simply getting away from the monster(s) in question and then avoiding that section of the dungeon is enough for me to feel safe. I'll only flee the level if there's at least two "hot" zones (containing monsters I don't want to fight), or if I've already explored most of the level anyway and thus have no interest in sticking around.

Currently, the only evil golems are Silent Watchers; even Bone Golems aren't evil. If we're going to change Drolems to be evil, then Bone Golems and probably Bronze Golems should be changed as well.

As for monsters being iconic, most of what makes them iconic is them being so dangerous. An AMHD with 1000 HP is not dangerous. An evil drolem is still a threat but a much less surprising one (and given their sleepiness, a trivially-avoided one in most cases).

[fizzix]

Of course, warriors are still hosed, but hey, screw warriors, am I right?

My warriors usually carry staves of detect evil at that depth, and they certainly would if drolems were evil. Warriors can also tank quite a bit of damage. Not enough to survive a drolem breath however.

[Kilumanjaro]

Just to throw in my two cents as a relatively new player...

re: Resists
I rather like the idea of stacking fractional resists, with each source of resistance adding 2 to the divisor. Hence with 1 source, you take only 1/3 the damage, two sources 1/5, etc.
To keep the high elements dangerous, those resists can instead increment the divisor by 1.
Whether the UI displays the actual fraction or a percentile representation is irrelevant, either will work.


re: Poison
I'm not terribly fond of the long-winded and not threatening 1 dmg per turn poison counter. Waiting around for 300 turns for the timer to tick down or my character die is really just a nuisance.
It'd be nice IMO to hybridize the up front hit with the over time drain... i.e. @ takes a hit for 800 unresisted damage with no initial effect, but 800 is added to the counter. At the start of (his/her/its) turn @ will take 1/2 of the counter in damage (round down), and the counter decrements by the same amount. All 800 damage will be dealt within the 1st 10 turns so threat is real but my survival isn't punished with hundreds of turns of drudgery.
Subsequent damage can also stack into the counter.

thanks for listening.

[LostTemplar]

with each source of resistance adding 2 to the divisor.

Way too much, if resist to be stacking, much more then one source should be required to get a current status quo of 1/3 damage done.

About unfair instant deaths, there is no such thing in Angband. Nothing is unfair from monster side, anything can be resisted avoided, etc. Characters have to die, if warriors die to drolems, it is fair, they have to die to something (unless you are borg).

[buzzkill]

It'd be nice IMO to hybridize the up front hit with the over time drain... i.e. @ takes a hit for 800 unresisted damage with no initial effect, but 800 is added to the counter. At the start of (his/her/its) turn @ will take 1/2 of the counter in damage (round down), and the counter decrements by the same amount.

Something needs to be done with the poison counter and this doesn't sound terrible. Though 1/2 seems a little heavy handed, you have to start somewhere. Later perhaps different poisons could have different divisors, quick and deadly (.75, .50) or slow and crippling (.25, .10). Maybe the divisor could degrade as the counter does, starts strong then really tapers off.

Also, must nix regen while poisoned. Now even lingering poisons that do less than 1 HP per turn, maybe 1 every other turn or every 5th turn become a possibility.

[PowerWyrm]

The current problem is that Angband has too many elements/resistances. What would be nice is to group all these into categories, or "basic" elements, like Air, Fire, Earth, Water... and for each category consider an "elemental" effect, a "physical" effect and a "magical" effect. For example, the "Fire" element would include Fire (elemental), Sound (physical) and Plasma (magical). The "Earth" element would include Cold, Shards and Ice.

Then you would only have as many resistances as the number of basic elements: Air resistance, Fire resistance... These resistances would be cumulative in a certain extent. For example:
- level 1 Earth resistance: cuts cold/shards/ice damage (1/2?); "resistance" to bleeding effects
- level 2 Earth resistance: cuts cold/shards/ice damage even more (1/4?); protects the inventory from cold damage
- level 3 Earth resistance: cuts cold/shards/ice damage even more (1/8?); makes inventory immune to cold damage

[Nomad]

The current problem is that Angband has too many elements/resistances.

I really wouldn't want to see the number of elements and resistances cut down at all, personally, and definitely not drastically. It's a huge part of Angband's unique flavour, IMO, and a lot of what keeps the equipment puzzle fresh and interesting game after game. I'd find it very dull if there were only four types of resistance to be found on egos and artefacts, and numerical levels of the basic elements don't have half as much flavour as names like Nexus, Nether, and Chaos.

[Zireael]

A while back (yikes, just dug up the post and it was 2010) I suggested a display in the sidebar to show the state of your base four resistances, to make the stacking of permanent and temporary sources more obvious. Something like this:

[BC=black]             
 rAcid  [COLOR="#C00000"]----[/COLOR] 
 rElec  [COLOR="#FFFF00"]x1/3[/COLOR] 
 rFire  [COLOR="#00FF00"]x1/9[/COLOR] 
 rCold  [COLOR="#008040"]****[/COLOR] 
             [/BC]

Would be pretty crowded to add the higher resists, though. But if we keep the current system where only the base four have stacking with temporary sources, you could combine it with Derakon's version, like so:

[BC=black]             
 rAcid  [COLOR="#C00000"]----[/COLOR] 
 rElec  [COLOR="#FFFF00"]x1/3[/COLOR] 
 rFire  [COLOR="#00FF00"]x1/9[/COLOR] 
 rCold  [COLOR="#008040"]****[/COLOR] 
             
 P [COLOR="#FF8000"]L[/COLOR] D [COLOR="#FFFF00"]So[/COLOR] Sh 
  [COLOR="#9020FF"]Nx[/COLOR] [COLOR="#00FF00"]Nt[/COLOR] C [COLOR="#FF00FF"]D[/COLOR]  
             [/BC]

I *so* want this in the game. Then we can discuss elements, resistances and the like more once all players have a clear view of how it works.

[mrrstark]

I *so* want this in the game. Then we can discuss elements, resistances and the like more once all players have a clear view of how it works.

A display like that would go _so_ far to solving any of the unintuitive arguments against implementing a complex system of resistances. That is, you can have w/e complexity you want, as long as the end result is clear to the player.

I also prefer the idea of a poison counter of some sort, vs. direct damage since it's more in line with almost every other game's implementation of poison as a Damage-over-time effect. You could even just list it as a "X for Y turns" in the player UI, so you can play with both the numerator and denominator easily and explicitly.

like:
"1 for 10 turns" for an early monster
"600 for 3 turns" for a horrible late game monster

Probably there's a better variation than X for Y, especially to take care of different potencies stacking, but I'm sure we can think of something.

[Nick]

Apologies in advance for tetchiness, it's the low point of my caffeine cycle.

re: Poison
I'm not terribly fond of the long-winded and not threatening 1 dmg per turn poison counter. Waiting around for 300 turns for the timer to tick down or my character die is really just a nuisance.
It'd be nice IMO to hybridize the up front hit with the over time drain... i.e. @ takes a hit for 800 unresisted damage with no initial effect, but 800 is added to the counter. At the start of (his/her/its) turn @ will take 1/2 of the counter in damage (round down), and the counter decrements by the same amount. All 800 damage will be dealt within the 1st 10 turns so threat is real but my survival isn't punished with hundreds of turns of drudgery.
Subsequent damage can also stack into the counter.

Thanks for the opinion, and it is an interesting idea. Playing with the counter certainly has potential.

The current problem is that Angband has too many elements/resistances.

Disagree completely, I'm sorry

I think there are actually very few problems with resistances as they are, which is not to say the system couldn't be improved.

I also prefer the idea of a poison counter of some sort, vs. direct damage since it's more in line with almost every other game's implementation of poison as a Damage-over-time effect.

I actually find this an argument for keeping it as is.

Angband is not every other game, it is what it is. Just because a whole bunch of other n00bs are involved in the same lazy groupthink doesn't mean we have to follow them on the road to hell

[debo]

I think you meant road to Mandos!

[LostTemplar]

The current problem is that Angband has too many elements/resistances.

Angband have too much of everything: resistances, artifacts, objects, monsters, stats, skills, levels, spells, magic devices, etc. But most ot this is just junk, so it is ignored and doesn't affect gameplay.

Brutal junk sweeping may be nice improvement, but Angband spirit will be lost.