Feature request - damage information per shot/round for launchers

[Timo Pietilä]

Why is melee not like this?

Too many user moves to be convenient I think. With extra blows weapon warrior would have 8 blows / turn, and those done individually would get boring. Also melee doesn't allow you to change targets between blows. Shots do.

"suspension of disbelief" -rationalization: in melee it is movement combo which you can't disrupt at mid-combo unless your target stops defending itself (IE. dies).

[Derakon]

Why is melee not like this?

Like Timo says, it's a lot of button presses. Also, Cthangband actually did do this, and it makes the game a lot easier for warrior-types, due to the "slow motion" effect -- you are very unlikely to get double-turned if you are attacking something six times per normal-speed turn. It pretty much requires there to be multiple monsters in view and for their energy levels to align nearly perfectly.

[Carnivean]

So it's too many presses for melee but not for ranged? It's too powerful for melee, but not for ranged, which has a significantly higher potential damage output.

I'm not agitating for either to change, but it doesn't make a lot of sense as it currently stands.

[Derakon]

So it's too many presses for melee but not for ranged? It's too powerful for melee, but not for ranged, which has a significantly higher potential damage output.

I'm not agitating for either to change, but it doesn't make a lot of sense as it currently stands.

I won't contest that. Ranged needs some degree of balancing, because it has weird power and tedium issues as it stands. I'd favor replacing +shots with +power (extra damage multipliers) for ranged combat, as I've suggested in the past.

[Estie]

I dont really see an issue, unless youre a ranger or find some extremely rare and unlikely randart with +shots, its 1 or 2 shots/round. And rangers having a different mechanic than melee is good in my book. Equalizing everything makes for easy balance, but stale gameplay - the more differences, the better.

[Derakon]

I dont really see an issue, unless youre a ranger or find some extremely rare and unlikely randart with +shots, its 1 or 2 shots/round. And rangers having a different mechanic than melee is good in my book. Equalizing everything makes for easy balance, but stale gameplay - the more differences, the better.

My issue with multiple shots is that they're so much more powerful than single shots. You can easily go from doing 250 damage/round to 500/round because of a single +1. A randart amulet that gives +1 shots and literally nothing else is endgame gear for any class (speaking from experience here). That kind of "chunkiness" is very hard to get to a reasonable approximation of balance -- I'm fine with some classes being more powerful than others, but the power differential shouldn't be gigantic.

I don't really think there'd be a big problem with rangers getting +1 to their multiplier at levels 15/30/45. Balance-wise that'd be like if warriors got an innate extra blow at those levels -- slightly weaker because launchers have lower base damage, but comparable. It's a decent power boost, it's unique and still encourages rangers to heavily emphasize ranged combat, but it's not so out-of-bounds as the current bonus and also doesn't require shooting tons of extra ammo to take advantage of. Plus I think thematically having rangers who are very good at shooting single shots is better than having rangers who are very good at shooting quickly.

[Estie]

I agree that the chunkiness could be smaller, but you have this unique behaviour with multiple shots that allows you to out-move monsters while still shooting. I dont want to lose that because I love it: using this effect to your advantage requires deep understanding of the game, also it is very thematic for archers to shoot-and-scoot.
So if you really, really think +1 shot is too big of an increase, the way to fix that would be to give everyone 2 base shots/round (at least at high levels).

Btw, I dont think its really, really needed - any (non-ranger) maximizing ranged damage will use an extra-shot ego, so getting +1 on top for 3/round is only a chunk of 50%. You use Cubragol for the speed rather than a launcher which would double your damage.