Playing Angband for the first time

[LostTemplar]

It's true that a player never needs to know their exact chances of hitting. However, when it comes time for a player to decide whether to go with a ring of accuracy or a ring of damage, the problem becomes apparent.

Really not, at least for players, who are not "DPS" ones. For a roleplayer, if A is better then B, difference is clearly seen, e.g. with A you kill an orc in one hit while with B it takes three. If difference is not seen with naked eye there is no difference. Numbers and equations may be interesting, but it definitely is not something player must be told about.

[taptap]

Really not, at least for players, who are not "DPS" ones. For a roleplayer, if A is better then B, difference is clearly seen, e.g. with A you kill an orc in one hit while with B it takes three. If difference is not seen with naked eye there is no difference. Numbers and equations may be interesting, but it definitely is not something player must be told about.

Comments like this make me doubt whether there is sufficient choice of weapon types / fighting styles in Angband - only collecting ever better weapons and don't worry about the numbers. I hope this isn't the case.

Edited: The logic behind: weapon doesn't matter, you don't need to know what happens, often enough you hit, disturbs me. Look what details are explained in the basic helpfiles of many variants and then say again the basic to-hit-change is too complicated to explain. There is something really wrong there. The system "base skill + bonus" -> sides of a die that rolls against armour class should be easy enough to explain.

What is DPS?

[LostTemplar]

Some weapons add ESP, some do give +10 speed, some can kill a dragon in one blow. Many choices but really not important. Any weapon, even +0 +0 shovel is good for killing Morgoth in melee.

Fightnig styles are missing, weapon types are missing too.

This does not mean Angband is easy, you need concentration, skill, no-greed and no-grind mood to win

[Avenger]

Comments like this make me doubt whether there is sufficient choice of weapon types / fighting styles in Angband - only collecting ever better weapons and don't worry about the numbers. I hope this isn't the case.

Edited: The logic behind: weapon doesn't matter, you don't need to know what happens, often enough you hit, disturbs me. Look what details are explained in the basic helpfiles of many variants and then say again the basic to-hit-change is too complicated to explain. There is something really wrong there. The system "base skill + bonus" -> sides of a die that rolls against armour class should be easy enough to explain.

What is DPS?

Um, yes, this is exactly correct. If you want more specific weapon skills, check out Heng/Cheng/Entro/PosCheng, which have skill levels associated with each individual weapon(although in my experience even that won't make the difference you want, unless you're also playing a Weaponmaster), or something like ADOM(although I haven't played it in awhile, so I'm not sure whether that system would meet your needs, either).

Would it be fair to say that you'd be okay with finding a really awesome weapon that you wouldn't be able to use effectively because you were specialized somewhere else?

Or are you looking more toward giving certain effects to certain weapons, like being able to entangle or pull monsters with a whip or shove with a polearm, or slashing/stabbing/crushing damage against certain types of armor?

What, exactly, do you want?

DPS is Damage Per Second, and is essentially a criteria for optimizing your kit for offense.

[LostTemplar]

Weapon specialization is worth nothing but reduces number of available weapons for a given character. Andband have nothing similar to Sil weapon system where e.g. polearms require different tactics then swords, etc. In angband, there is no such tactics, just bump into mob, and yes, no matter waht, you will hit often enough to never care about.

[Nick]

Comments like this make me doubt whether there is sufficient choice of weapon types / fighting styles in Angband - only collecting ever better weapons and don't worry about the numbers. I hope this isn't the case.

Edited: The logic behind: weapon doesn't matter, you don't need to know what happens, often enough you hit, disturbs me. Look what details are explained in the basic helpfiles of many variants and then say again the basic to-hit-change is too complicated to explain. There is something really wrong there. The system "base skill + bonus" -> sides of a die that rolls against armour class should be easy enough to explain.

First, have you used the inspect command ('I') on your weapon? That will tell you information about damage done and give a way to compare weapons. There certainly are elements of collecting ever better weapons, but there are frequently interesting choices and tradeoffs.

Despite the similar roots of Sil and Angband, they are actually very different games. Angband is a long game, with many different monster types, and you kill a lot of monsters. While it would be possible to make a detailed analysis of your hit chances with a given gear arrangement against any monster, it would take a really long time. So what I (and I suspect most Angband players) do is try a kit out against a few monsters until you get a sense of how well it's working. If I'm in a tough fight, I tend to hit a few times, then look at my health and the monster's health and say "Am I winning?". A lot of the learning to play Angband is about developing that judgment; while the numbers form a part of it, it's really too complex to be able to do the numbers every time.

Hope that makes some sense.

[taptap]

Thanks. I actually did know the inspect command. I still believe being unable to tell anything about to hit chances is a flaw in a game, that offers average damage dealt, exact success percentages for magic on a silver platter ... So far it seems gameplay is very much centered around the abundant special effects and their efficient deployment, while normal or simple fine items are utterly irrelevant after you get past the first few floors / map tiles.

"I'd love to see our new Angband overlord take a hard look at messy mechanics like these with an eye towards simplification and clarification."

Exactly.

[Derakon]

Angband is a high-magic setting. It's never going to be a low-magic setting like Sil is, even if mechanics are simplified and made more transparent. Ordinary and "fine" items are always going to be irrelevant once you get past the early game. Why use a +6 dagger when you can use a +9 dagger of Slay Evil instead? And why use the Slay Evil dagger when you can use the Dagger 'Nimthanc'?

[half]

Out of curiosity, what is the need to know?

There are various cases where you trade off to-hit with something else. If the game gives you very little idea how to make this tradeoff (or if it is irrelevant how to make this tradeoff) then something seems to have gone wrong with the design or documentation.

[LostTemplar]

Sil probably feels more "magical" then Angband. As for normal items being irrelevant, it is due to the fact it started form DnD and then was expanded without proper revision. This lead to a situation where initially conceptually basic combat system, e.g. to-hit, damage dice, armor class, character's hit dice, etc. becomes mostly irrelevant, overshadowed by bonuses. It is not due to magic, just due to numbers, e.g. if there would be normal weapons with
e.g. 15d10+ damge dice such weapons will rival current endgame ones, and if lategame monsters will have 350+ AC, suddenly to-hit will be important too.

In short dice and monster AC are too small so nice and reach combat system is degraded.

[Nick]

There are various cases where you trade off to-hit with something else. If the game gives you very little idea how to make this tradeoff (or if it is irrelevant how to make this tradeoff) then something seems to have gone wrong with the design or documentation.

That's really hard to argue with.

[nppangband]

That's really hard to argue with.

My first thought / suggestion is, after the player hits the monster enough to be given the monster's armor class in the lore, in the monster race description the player should be given the % chance of a regular hit, as well as the % chance of each stage of critical hits.

I must be getting old. I remember when this was considered "spoiler" information. But wen I read this thread I agree that giving the player this info makes perfect sense.

[Derakon]

My first thought / suggestion is, after the player hits the monster enough to be given the monster's armor class in the lore, in the monster race description the player should be given the % chance of a regular hit, as well as the % chance of each stage of critical hits.

% chance to hit is already exposed in the monster memory (% chance of critting is trickier to calculate without resorting to Monte Carlo). The problem is that the way that +to-hit affects chance-to-hit is not remotely transparent, which makes it difficult to compare gear. Sure, you can swap items around, then check the monster memory and see how it affects things, but ideally it should be obvious.

[kaypy]

Idea: In the inspect weapon screen display chance of hitting for the last monster recalled for which we know hit-probabilities. This would need to be stored (but maybe not saved- just initialize with the first thing on the list we have killed?)

For bonus points also show the resulting DPS.

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<sound of compiler starting in background (think engine noise, but badly digitized)>

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patch.txt

This one doesn't do much fancy- just displays hit prob for whatever would be in the monster recall window, or a "select an appropriate monster" message.

[taptap]

% chance to hit is already exposed in the monster memory.

I guess practice differs between variants on this point then? (I can't find anything telling me the chance to hit in FAAngband's monster memory - unless AC is directly dependent on danger level.)