How much +hit would you trade for +dam?

[Nivra]

Would you take +3 hit for +2 dam?

What about +2 hit vs. +1 dam?

What about +5 hit for +2 dam?

+3 hit for +1 dam?

...

Basically, at what point is the trade worth it for you if playing a melee or ranged damage character?

[Derakon]

+to-hit is so hard to quantify that I don't bother; I just assign it a value of zero and get on with my game. There's presumably some point at which X to-hit is worth more than Y to-dam, but it's not something I care to optimize.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

for a race class combo that has terrible fighting ability, at the early levels before stats start getting toward max, then I will sometimes opt for accuracy just because without it the @ misses so much. Plus such a @ should be using ranged attack where +damage has no effect. Normally, though, I ignore accuracy and go for damage and speed.

[Estie]

Pretty much what Derakon said; though I would like to see a function of to hit chance/ target AC for a few typical values of to hit at various stages of the game.

I think that +1 to hit when your chance to hit target is low is worth more than when its high already. If thats true, then the first place to consider +to hit would be with characters that start out with low to hit bonus, but want to use melee or archery.
I believe the ranged to hit of casters (that is mages and priests) has been substantially nerfed "recently"; so it might be good to use to hit rings if one of them happens to find an awesome launcher early and use that for offense. However, the ring slot is so congested that I dont see that being some kind of great recipe for winning.

In a game balanced out for physical damage, you might see a normal to hit chance for monsters of similar level (maybe 80 or 90%) that drops with higher monster level relative to the attacker, making the fight longer and eventually either leading to loss or at least making combating too high level monsters unprofitable.

In Angband, its very easy to disengage (phasedoor) and heal up; also, only a very few situations of low level @ vs high level monster take a melee exchange of several rounds to decide a winner. Typically, ood things blast @ to smithereens with magic or breath long before the melee is decided.

In this scenario, modifying to hit curves with the intention of preventing low level @ from winning the melee vs high level monster would have little impact; if melee was the dominating combat mode, it would make sense to make the window of AC that @ hits smaller, leading to high miss chances versus high level (high AC) monsters, which could then be overcome by equipping item to hit bonuses.

As it stands, to hit items have negligible effect.

Edit: typo

[Nivra]

Wow. These are fascinating replies. I'll share my own experience. In comparing equipment and item sets in the mid-game where I am now, I always look at average damage which I get from "e-a," and then look at accuracy. I started out looking at Accuracy vs. Saruman and Arien since those were two uniques I had trouble with. Saruman had a chance for @ to hit him in the "80's" and Arien in the "70's." What I learned fascinated me.

To-hit made very little difference against Saruman. +8 to hit would maybe increase the accuracy by +1 damage. Wheraeas +8 damage would increase my damage by avg. dmg. by 5% or more.

However, for Arien, there was quite a significant shift 68% shifted to 72 or 73% on equipping a +8 to hit item.

I currently trade off items around +3 to-hit for +1 to-dam just to find a middle ground between the two cases. In Arien's case, it's closer to 3:2, and in Saruman's closer to 5:1.

[fizzix]

One place where to-hit is clearly superior is for ranged attackers. You don't get +to-dam on ranged attacks, but you do get +to-hit. A ring of accuracy is actually a really good item for a Ranger.

[Derakon]

One place where to-hit is clearly superior is for ranged attackers. You don't get +to-dam on ranged attacks, but you do get +to-hit. A ring of accuracy is actually a really good item for a Ranger.

Is it really? How good is "really good"? I get that it's better than a Ring of Damage, but how much more deadly does it make you?

[Nivra]

Is it really? How good is "really good"? I get that it's better than a Ring of Damage, but how much more deadly does it make you?

This would be a good feature request, to get ranged percent chance to hit added to the monster descriptions.

[bio_hazard]

Maybe the bonus for accuracy rings should be applied differently.
Make the scale just +1 to +3 (or so)
Bonus is number of extra times you roll to hit with each attack. Use the highest roll.

[Derakon]

Maybe the bonus for accuracy rings should be applied differently.
Make the scale just +1 to +3 (or so)
Bonus is number of extra times you roll to hit with each attack. Use the highest roll.

Neat idea, though even just a +1 under this rule would be very powerful. Say your normal hit rate is 75%; with a +1 accuracy ring your hit rate would be 93.75%, for an increase in damage of 25%. Maybe Rings of Accuracy would give you a percentile chance of getting extra hit attempts? +1 = 10% chance to reroll on miss, +2 = 20% to reroll, etc. A +1 ring would then take a 75% hit rate up to 76.875%. More granular...but also more complicated.

How about accuracy rings just increase your accuracy directly in percentage points? A Ring of Accuracy (+1%) would take you from 75% accuracy to 76%, or from 90% to 91%, etc.

[Nivra]

Neat idea, though even just a +1 under this rule would be very powerful. Say your normal hit rate is 75%; with a +1 accuracy ring your hit rate would be 93.75%, for an increase in damage of 25%. Maybe Rings of Accuracy would give you a percentile chance of getting extra hit attempts? +1 = 10% chance to reroll on miss, +2 = 20% to reroll, etc. A +1 ring would then take a 75% hit rate up to 76.875%. More granular...but also more complicated.

How about accuracy rings just increase your accuracy directly in percentage points? A Ring of Accuracy (+1%) would take you from 75% accuracy to 76%, or from 90% to 91%, etc.

I don't think anything is wrong with the +hit. It's opaque, just like the +dam is I think it's how we report it that needs to change. Just like we can check a weapon for avg. damage, we need to be able to check a weapon for avg. chance to hit. Maybe just make it always display the chance to hit vs. a monster with [MAX-DLVL]*2 AC. So it starts at a 2 AC at 50' and ends at a 198 AC monster right before you descent to level 100. That should roughly approximate the increase in AC that monsters get as you descend through the dungeon. The "on avg" helps the player understand that some monsters(e.g. cloth wearers - low AC) will get hit more, and some monsters will be harder to hit.

[Derakon]

I don't think anything is wrong with the +hit. It's opaque, just like the +dam is I think it's how we report it that needs to change.

+damage is straightforward to apply: every time you hit the enemy, you deal 1 more damage per point of +damage you have. +hit is far more complicated, because it makes you slightly more likely to hit...but how much more likely is hard to know -- it depends on arcane formulae that are not exposed anywhere. And of course the effective damage boost depends on your damage stats as well. And being more accurate makes you slightly more likely to get critical hits, which are insanely complicated to calculate.

+hit is vastly more opaque than +damage.

[Nivra]

+damage is straightforward to apply: every time you hit the enemy, you deal 1 more damage per point of +damage you have. +hit is far more complicated, because it makes you slightly more likely to hit...but how much more likely is hard to know -- it depends on arcane formulae that are not exposed anywhere. And of course the effective damage boost depends on your damage stats as well. And being more accurate makes you slightly more likely to get critical hits, which are insanely complicated to calculate.

+hit is vastly more opaque than +damage.

Disagree on +damage being straightforward. With the different combinations of blows, slays, and melee vs. ranged modifiers, it is not by any means straightforward.

How much does +1 dam add when you have 4.3 blows, slay giant, slay evil, *slay undead* on your weapon, and a buckland sling <+2,+2> with missile weapons of slay giant, slay evil and *slay undead*

I think it adds 4.3 damage to your melee regardless of giant/evil/undead, but 8 to ranged, 16 to ranged evil, 24 to ranged giants, and 40 to ranged undead.

Is that right? I guess it's slightly simpler than accuracy, but I still check the char screen to figure it out rather than doing any kind of self-calculation.

Besides which, at mid/high levels, I'm always looking at %-increase. If dam increases 3% and accuracy increases 5%, I'm taking accuracy. So then, i'm always looking at well, what's the % increase I get from this +5 dam vs. this +10 accuracy?

[Derakon]

Disagree on +damage being straightforward. With the different combinations of blows, slays, and melee vs. ranged modifiers, it is not by any means straightforward.

It may not be explained in-game, but it's very simple. Every +1 to-damage gives you 1 additional damage on each blow. That's it. Slays, dice, etc. have no impact.

Meanwhile, for accuracy, you have to calculate how much more accurate you are, which depends on your stats and the stats of the monster you're attacking, as well as a formula that's hidden away in the source code and that I think may even be nonlinear (thus the accuracy increase against target A may not be the accuracy increase against target B). And once you figure out how much more accurate you are, you then have to convert that into an effective damage increase (e.g. going from 75% hit rate to 76% hit rate means your damage increases by 76/75 ~= 1%). For +damage the game just outright tells you what your damage is with and without the item against all types of targets, making such calculations trivial.

[Estie]

Youre making new rings again

The "Acccuracy" mod appears everywhere, on weapons, as class or race bonuses, you get it when you level up, its on armors (negative and negligible), as part of the "slay" modifier (+x, +y) it can appear on rings, gloves and every type of randart, on amulets of weaponmastery, and...on rings. So making a new ring of accuracy that works differently with the only purpose of transparency as to its effectiveness seems a bit off. And while bio_hazards idea is funky, it cant be applied to all occurrences of to hit in the game (not enough granulation, not easy to add up the effective to hit chance of multiple sources).

No, I think having a fixed to-hit chance function for all values of to hit and AC and moving up and down the coordinates linearly with modifiers from items or otherwise is good.

- For transparency, showing the chance of hitting the last monster attacked is great. Also, if someone happens on the actual function, Id love to see it posted here.

- The numbers are unfortunately too big. A competitive ring of accuracy would be +100 or more. The same goes for AC; somehow dividing all the numbers involved by 2 or more would be great, but it also seems a daunting task.

- The shape of the curve could be changed. Currently there is little change of to hit chance for to hit/AC values that actually occur in game; you could create areas where characters dont hit unless they equip a sufficent amount of to hit gear.