Playing Angband for the first time

[kaypy]

When you ask questions in the Vanilla forum, the responses you get tend to reflect the current state of Vanilla.

The variants, well, vary.

They may have forked off Vanilla a while ago. Or way, way back, in some cases. So they won't track the latest updates to V, unless the maintainer spends all their time porting updates from V instead of making the changes they actually want to make.

[Susramanian]

Figuring out a way to tell the player their chance to hit a given monster is OK, but we could do better. Ideally, we make hit chances based on such a simple system that we can tell the player how the system works very easily. Then the player doesn't have to check individual weapons against individual enemies. They know how a weapon would perform against any particular monster they might consider.

The d20 system does a good job of this. Sample implementation: Let monster ACs range from single digits in the early game to an extreme of 40 or so in the end game. Let player +hit values range from 0 to an extreme of 35 or so at max level with great gear. When you swing at a monster, roll a d20. Add your +hit to the result, and if it beats the monster's AC, you hit.

Hit chances are easy to calculate mentally and will always come in nice chunks of five. AC and +hit numbers will remain small and manageable throughout the game. Integers abound. It's designed to be instantly understood and implemented by people sitting at a table without a calculator. Just because Angband isn't a tabletop game doesn't mean it wouldn't benefit from a tabletop-friendly system.

[Derakon]

Pyrel's system is even simpler than D&D's: your chance to hit is (75 - monster evasion + accuracy bonus)%. Accuracy bonuses are not common (the vast majority of weapons will not have them...actually, nothing currently has them ) and most monsters have an evasion of 0, so in most cases your chance to hit is 75%. This actually is pretty close to your effective accuracy in Vanilla in most situations, oddly enough. Then monsters that are evasive have a highly visible effect on your chance to hit, as does any to-hit bonus you manage to scrape together.

[LostTemplar]

D&D system is supposed to make e.g. mage much weaker in melee compared to fighter in some natural way, also to make melee power progress with clvl.

But what plain 75% hit with rare bonuses system will do? Why not 100%-evasion hit ?

[Susramanian]

Pyrel's system is even simpler than D&D's: your chance to hit is (75 - monster evasion + accuracy bonus)%.

Very nice! Angband would be a much better game with a system like this.

[Derakon]

D&D system is supposed to make e.g. mage much weaker in melee compared to fighter in some natural way, also to make melee power progress with clvl.

This is accomplished by scaling the damage you deal rather than your chance to hit. Pyrel uses the prowess/finesse system, and the stats that affect those (STR/DEX, melee prowess/finesse bonuses) do scale with gear and level, and differently for different classes. Mages get lousy prowess/finesse bonuses with level, so most of their combat ability comes from stats and gear, which are class-independent.

But what plain 75% hit with rare bonuses system will do? Why not 100%-evasion hit ?

Mostly because Vanilla's system practically always boils down to a 65-85% chance to hit monsters you care about.

I mean, we could make it start from 100 and then make the baseline monster evasion be 25, but that's not functionally any different.

I don't think that the player should be guaranteed able to hit non-evasive monsters, if that's what you were suggesting. There should always be a decent chance of missing.

[buzzkill]

Now I'm wondering about "clears rubble in 15 turns." AFAIK, Angband doesn't contain any actions that take more than one turn. How does this function? Is it a % chance per turn, averaging out to 15 turns, or is rubble degraded slightly each turn until it is gone. What's going on here?

[Derakon]

Now I'm wondering about "clears rubble in 15 turns." AFAIK, Angband doesn't contain any actions that take more than one turn. How does this function? Is it a % chance per turn, averaging out to 15 turns, or is rubble degraded slightly each turn until it is gone. What's going on here?

It's a % chance per turn. Everything "difficult" in Angband (picking locks, disarming traps, digging, searching, bashing down doors, maybe a few other things) is purely chance-driven; you could succeed on the first try or you could never succeed at all, but on average you'll succeed on the Nth turn based on the difficulty of the task.

[chris]

Regarding melee accuracy, the current system uses 1dS >= 2A/3 to determine a hit, where S is the player's melee skill and A is the monster's armor class. Provided S >= 2A/3, this yields a probabilty of 1 - 2A/3S for a hit. Notice 2 things about this system: [1] probability approaches 1 asymptotically as player skill increases (for a given A) and [2] by forming the ratio of A to S, the amount of skill required to overcome a given armor class A is proportional to that A.

Contrast this to a system like (75 - A + S) /100. In this case, there is no asymptotic approach to probability 1, and the amount of skill required to overcome a given A is *not* propotional to A. Meaning if you have S = 2A it is not possible to draw a rational conclusion about the probability of hitting (without know what A is). Whereas in the first system, S = 2A implies a 2/3 probability of hitting, no matter the A.

I think the first system is clearly preferable. Also, it is fairly simple provided you know what S and A are.

[LostTemplar]

I mean, we could make it start from 100 and then make the baseline monster evasion be 25, but that's not functionally any different.

But does not need any explanation to player. It is obvious. As for baseline evasion it would be better to call it "default" evasion, some monsters e.g. molds may have evasion of 0, and probably golems may have it lower then 25.

[buzzkill]

It's a % chance per turn. Everything "difficult" in Angband (picking locks, disarming traps, digging, searching, bashing down doors, maybe a few other things) is purely chance-driven; you could succeed on the first try or you could never succeed at all, but on average you'll succeed on the Nth turn based on the difficulty of the task.

That's pretty much what I assumed, which brings me to my next point. How about some % based language. Rather than "takes 15 turns", how about "7% chance of (per turn)".

It's one of those no-brainer things IMO. Anyone playing Angband has rudimentary math skills (else they would be doing a word search on their lunch hour), and can there calculate the number of turns it would take in about 1/2 a second. Seriously, we don't go around saying "You will hit the kobold every 3 turns. It's a 33% chance."

[takkaria]

That's pretty much what I assumed, which brings me to my next point. How about some % based language. Rather than "takes 15 turns", how about "7% chance of (per turn)".

It's one of those no-brainer things IMO. Anyone playing Angband has rudimentary math skills (else they would be doing a word search on their lunch hour), and can there calculate the number of turns it would take in about 1/2 a second. Seriously, we don't go around saying "You will hit the kobold every 3 turns. It's a 33% chance."

But I think that the thing that is interesting to a player who is tunnelling is actually how many turns it takes and not how likely they are to succeed in any given attack - which is not the as combat. I prefer it like this because turns taken is the measure of how boring trying to tunnel is.

[Derakon]

I think the first system is clearly preferable. Also, it is fairly simple provided you know what S and A are.

Why do you feel it's clearly preferable? Because you like asymptotes? I find the math in Pyrel's approach to be much simpler to deal with; if you find a ring of +5 accuracy then that's a 5% increase in your chance to hit, no matter what (unless you cap out, of course). And if a monster has 25% evasion, then that makes it 25% harder to hit, no matter what (barring cap-out, but I can't imagine a monster hitting the evasion cap because it'd be a pain in the ass to fight). It's very simple, with easy math.

[taptap]

Why do you feel it's clearly preferable? Because you like asymptotes? I find the math in Pyrel's approach to be much simpler to deal with; if you find a ring of +5 accuracy then that's a 5% increase in your chance to hit, no matter what (unless you cap out, of course). And if a monster has 25% evasion, then that makes it 25% harder to hit, no matter what (barring cap-out, but I can't imagine a monster hitting the evasion cap because it'd be a pain in the ass to fight). It's very simple, with easy math.

A game of 1001 floors with increasing numbers in skills, hitpoints, weapons, armour needs to scale up well, I guess. Most of the power increases are artificial and you may end up killing enemies in as much strikes in the endgame as earlier in the game (I guess, not been in proper Angband endgame) just with different numbers, but is there any willingness to move to a system where this escalation is deliberately reduced? (This is what Sil does, where only skill increases while hitpoints, weapons, armour remain more or less static.)

[LostTemplar]

A game of 1001 floors with increasing numbers in skills, hitpoints, weapons, armour needs to scale up well

No need to scale in all aspects. Things like chance to hit, chance to crit, etc. don't need to scale at all, they may scale, but they may depend on e.g. weapon type, so rapier may give +10 to hit while 2 handed maul give -20 etc.