Why does literally everything do acid damage

[debo]

Hi I'm having a lot of fun playing the 3.5 comp, and I have come up with a revolutionary idea re: the future direction of Angband development.

The Big Idea: Make not a billion things do acid damage.

In one room alone just now I have fought

A 'bloodshot' icky thing
Water hounds
A water vortex
A purple worm
An ochre jelly
A gelatinous cube

and those are just the ones I can remember. Guess what all of them have in common?

I'm not sure why all these things have different colors and flavors if all they do is barf acid. Why don't we just assign a color (green) / flavor (water) of monster to acid damage and be consistent with it?

Acid damage is basically a waste of time anyways, things are cheap enough that I just go up to town and buy new enchanted equipment. The only super annoying thing is that it blows up staves (and even then I only think when it's a breath).

Honestly I'm on DL25 and I feel like literally half of everything I've fought that's not an orc does acid damage. This is kinda super repetitive! At the very least it would be nice if we could use visual cues like "hey that's green, fuck that thing I'm outta here"

[Derakon]

The weird thing is that almost all of the acid-based monsters are front-loaded into the first 20 levels of the game. After that they tail off considerably; I think the only new acid-based monsters after that point are acidic cytoplasms and black puddings.

Of course, in the mid- and late-game, most of your equipment can't be damaged by acid anyway, so it loses some of its punch. But it does seem like acid monsters are a bit densely-packed early on!

I've honestly just stopped noticing acid damage, really. It's basically your introduction to "nothing is permanent, don't get attached to your gear/stats/etc." I don't claim that makes it fun.

[krazyhades]

This resonates. Screw all of these monsters. Double-screw the ones that have at least two of the following: fast, ranged, appear in groups. They're not hard to deal with. They're just annoying. I don't seriously argue we get rid of this, but it isn't fun. It's one of those things that I think "fucking Angband. I hate this stupid game. Wait I'm still playing it."

[HugoVirtuoso]

This resonates. Screw all of these monsters. Double-screw the ones that have at least two of the following: fast, ranged, appear in groups. They're not hard to deal with. They're just annoying. I don't seriously argue we get rid of this, but it isn't fun. It's one of those things that I think "fucking Angband. I hate this stupid game. Wait I'm still playing it."

Imo, this annoyance from Vanilla Angband is tame compared to the uber-nasty stuff that happens in variants like PosChengband.

[krazyhades]

Oh god yes. I've been playing a lot of poscheng lately and it's much more irritating with drains, acid, and company. Plus the monster memory doesn't play nice.

edit: I just yesterday compiled a debug build so that I can activate monster knowledge, but I haven't played any games with it yet because of the competition. I don't plan to submit any of said characters to the ladder because I know it's looked down upon, but I have limited patience for self-pat-on-the-back-because-we-so-veteran design.

tl;dr I will play cheating poschengband characters to learn more and not upload them to the ladder.

[Philip]

The weird thing is that almost all of the acid-based monsters are front-loaded into the first 20 levels of the game. After that they tail off considerably; I think the only new acid-based monsters after that point are acidic cytoplasms and black puddings.

Of course, in the mid- and late-game, most of your equipment can't be damaged by acid anyway, so it loses some of its punch. But it does seem like acid monsters are a bit densely-packed early on!

I've honestly just stopped noticing acid damage, really. It's basically your introduction to "nothing is permanent, don't get attached to your gear/stats/etc." I don't claim that makes it fun.

You forgot Bile Demons, but acid is a waste of space late-game anyway. Easy to resist, relatively low damage and non-weapon or ring sources of immunity exist and are pretty easy to find.

[debo]

The weird thing is that almost all of the acid-based monsters are front-loaded into the first 20 levels of the game.

Yes, I should have been clearer about this point specifically.

[debo]

It's one of those things that I think "fucking Angband. I hate this stupid game. Wait I'm still playing it."

Be careful. Nick finds these sorts of comments encouraging

[Nick]

Acid damage is basically a waste of time anyways, things are cheap enough that I just go up to town and buy new enchanted equipment.

So I'm hearing "Acid attacks should be more dangerous"

[Derakon]

So I'm hearing "Acid attacks should be more dangerous"

How about this: give each piece of armor HP equal to 10 * current AC (so unenchanted Soft Leather Armor would have 80 HP, for example). If acid attacks the armor, then the armor loses HP; for every 10 HP it loses it loses 1 AC. Acid deals all of its damage to armor, if it can; it only hurts the player if the armor cannot be damaged by acid (either because it's immune or because it has no more HP).

You could also make it just be "10 acid damage = lose 1 AC" but then small acid attacks either get ignored or get overly large influence. That might be worth the simplification though.

In any event, the effect would be to make acid really hard on your armor while doing next to nothing to the character -- but with a clean transition to doing normal damage to the character when their gear becomes immune to acid.

[MattB]

In any event, the effect would be to make acid really hard on your armor while doing next to nothing to the character -- but with a clean transition to doing normal damage to the character when their gear becomes immune to acid.

But why would acid suddenly start damaging someone just because they are now wearing clothing that's immune to acid?
Seems backwards to me...

[Derakon]

But why would acid suddenly start damaging someone just because they are now wearing clothing that's immune to acid?
Seems backwards to me...

The acid neutralizes itself in eating up the armor; if the armor cannot interact chemically with the acid, then the acid is not neutralized.

[Carnivean]

Acid splashes will not necessarily land entirely on armoured pieces of the body. Depending on the equipment worn, you might be splashed on bare hands, face, head, feet, etc. If you've previously had acid eat away part of the armour, you might also have holes in the armour that let another acid attack land on flesh. Or you might be able to cover your exposed parts with a shield between you and the attacker.

We had a change for 3.5 where elemental attacks now do some part of all attacks as physical damage (or something like that). Acid should be similar I think, with modifiers for equipment, but otherwise I think Derakon is onto something.

[Philip]

So I'm hearing "Acid attacks should be more dangerous"

Definitely. If acid only affects equipment and inventory it can't be allowed to be a base element. Let alone the most common element early on. We either need to make it kill players, or replace it with a different element. When was the last time an acid attack directly killed someone's character? If acid or a replacement of it starts to kill characters we have a harder game (not a bad thing, I think) and an interesting, annoying, but rare effect in the form of acid.

What to replace acid with. Water? Stun players for fun and death? Switching around the positions of water and acid could be fun. We'd have to remove some of the unnecessary acid monsters, we'd have existentially dangerous early hounds and the universal horror of the players.

[wobbly]

How about this: give each piece of armor HP equal to 10 * current AC (so unenchanted Soft Leather Armor would have 80 HP, for example). If acid attacks the armor, then the armor loses HP; for every 10 HP it loses it loses 1 AC. Acid deals all of its damage to armor, if it can; it only hurts the player if the armor cannot be damaged by acid (either because it's immune or because it has no more HP).

You could also make it just be "10 acid damage = lose 1 AC" but then small acid attacks either get ignored or get overly large influence. That might be worth the simplification though.

In any event, the effect would be to make acid really hard on your armor while doing next to nothing to the character -- but with a clean transition to doing normal damage to the character when their gear becomes immune to acid.

Or make it really gamey. If all my armour is acid resistant do I carry around some junk armour to switch to when defending against acid attacks? In the example above soft leather is good for a -80 damage reduction on acid if I switch. I suspect this solution would cause more problems then it solves.