Cone-shaped breaths

[Nick]

I think we're running into the issue of trying to rebalance a complicated system where everything relates to everything else...the solution tends to look like "throw the entire thing out and start over from scratch".

Well yup, this is the problem, and we should probably redesign this when nck_m decides to rework combat in general.

IMHO the way to tackle it is incrementally, and the cone-shaped breaths are a step. Everything relating to everything else is actually kind of good - when you make a change which is good in itself, the way it breaks the current system is an indicator of what other changes are needed.

I would argue that currently the dominant mechanics are breathing and summoning, with mana storm from high-level casters a distant third, and they tend to dwarf all other considerations. I would prefer to see a wider range of monster attack types - archery, for example - and then have them combine in interesting ways in the monster list. This way it is not so much raw level that matters, but the particular characteristics of player and monster - so a monster with powerful archery and melee can be taken on comfortably by a well-armoured warrior, but will be terrifying to a mage.

[HallucinationMushroom]

Oh. Cone shaped BREATHS.

[fizzix]

IMHO the way to tackle it is incrementally, and the cone-shaped breaths are a step. Everything relating to everything else is actually kind of good - when you make a change which is good in itself, the way it breaks the current system is an indicator of what other changes are needed.

What I would argue against is a development path that says, "Ok cone shaped breaths have made breath monsters weaker, so let's rebalance it by making breaths more powerful or something." Instead I would prefer an approach that is ok with some imbalance as some of the basic mechanics are revisited. Then come back and balance stuff.

[Derakon]

Estie: I think we're talking past each other at this point, so for the sake of the thread I'm just going to bow out of that particular argument. Feel free to PM me if you want to continue.

I would argue that currently the dominant mechanics are breathing and summoning, with mana storm from high-level casters a distant third, and they tend to dwarf all other considerations.

More generally, the top concern the player has is "how likely am I to die next turn?" Anything that leaves the player at significant (>10% or so) risk of instadeath is a problem. That includes things like being knocked out by mystics, being breathed on for huge damage (or cast at for huge damage), being paralyzed, being slowed and then double-turned, etc.

And, on the countervailing side, to help the player cope with these dangerous situations, we've given them a huge number of overpowered tools: teleportation, teleport away, teleport level, full-HP-restore potions and spells, perfect monster detection, perfect terrain detection, Destruction, Banishment/genocide...probably a few more that I'm not thinking of off the top of my head.

I can imagine a game in which all of the above tools are removed, but it would have to dial the monsters way down to compensate. Like, monsters shouldn't normally be able to do more than 5-10% of the player's HP per turn, at most, because if things go poorly the player will have very few options for escaping battle. And monster ranged attacks would have to get nerfed even harder (say, max range of 5 tiles, no ranged attack has perfect accuracy, damage is lower than melee damage) so that being in sight of multiple monsters isn't a death sentence.

Whatever we'd end up with at the end, it would look very different from current Angband.

[luneya]

I can imagine a game in which all of the above tools are removed, but it would have to dial the monsters way down to compensate. Like, monsters shouldn't normally be able to do more than 5-10% of the player's HP per turn, at most, because if things go poorly the player will have very few options for escaping battle. And monster ranged attacks would have to get nerfed even harder (say, max range of 5 tiles, no ranged attack has perfect accuracy, damage is lower than melee damage) so that being in sight of multiple monsters isn't a death sentence.

Whatever we'd end up with at the end, it would look very different from current Angband.

A change that extreme would make for an interesting game, but I think you're heading into variant territory, not the direction we would want to pursue in vanilla.

[Nick]

What I would argue against is a development path that says, "Ok cone shaped breaths have made breath monsters weaker, so let's rebalance it by making breaths more powerful or something." Instead I would prefer an approach that is ok with some imbalance as some of the basic mechanics are revisited. Then come back and balance stuff.

Precisely

More generally, the top concern the player has is "how likely am I to die next turn?" Anything that leaves the player at significant (>10% or so) risk of instadeath is a problem. That includes things like being knocked out by mystics, being breathed on for huge damage (or cast at for huge damage), being paralyzed, being slowed and then double-turned, etc.

I think this is overstating it - a character encountering 10 10% instadeath risks will on average be dead. I would argue that instadeath risks are a part of the game, and the art of playing it is not exposing your character to them, and balancing the risk with the reward. So the game should try to keep risks and rewards fairly highly correlated.

I can imagine a game in which all of the above tools are removed, but it would have to dial the monsters way down to compensate. Like, monsters shouldn't normally be able to do more than 5-10% of the player's HP per turn, at most, because if things go poorly the player will have very few options for escaping battle. And monster ranged attacks would have to get nerfed even harder (say, max range of 5 tiles, no ranged attack has perfect accuracy, damage is lower than melee damage) so that being in sight of multiple monsters isn't a death sentence.

Whatever we'd end up with at the end, it would look very different from current Angband.

I also can imagine this, and I don't want to go anywhere near it

I think we have to start from the position that Angband as it is is a good game, or why are we even here? Given that, my approach to making changes is to find ways to make the game better, rather than looking for flaws and trying to fix them. Cone-shaped breaths are more intuitive, and they bring the side benefits of more tactical interest to the game (they're not just ball spells by another name) and the reduced instadeath at a distance.

Going a step further, what should be deadly at a distance? Probably archery is the big one (and as I was hinting before I think monster archery is seriously underpowered) along with spells. Breaths should be increasingly dangerous as you get closer, but I think there is an argument that really close up the player would have a chance at dodging, where a grid or two back they're just going to be in the middle of the full force.

[fph]

Going a step further, what should be deadly at a distance? Probably archery is the big one (and as I was hinting before I think monster archery is seriously underpowered) along with spells. Breaths should be increasingly dangerous as you get closer, but I think there is an argument that really close up the player would have a chance at dodging, where a grid or two back they're just going to be in the middle of the full force.

A related issue is that currently melee users have very few possibilities to avoid being exposed to archers for a number of turns while they get close to them (the 'pincushion problem'). Their only resource is exploiting the hell out of visibility and weak AI.
It would be useful if there were additional possibilities for the player, such as:

* spells or abilities that move a monster closer to you (think "hooking" them in from a distance).
* or, conversely, abilities that move you close to them (charge attack, teleport next to a foe).
* blind/confuse/paralyze monsters abilities that are actually useful beyond 500'.

[fizzix]

A related issue is that currently melee users have very few possibilities to avoid being exposed to archers for a number of turns while they get close to them (the 'pincushion problem'). Their only resource is exploiting the hell out of visibility and weak AI.
It would be useful if there were additional possibilities for the player, such as:

* spells or abilities that move a monster closer to you (think "hooking" them in from a distance).
* or, conversely, abilities that move you close to them (charge attack, teleport next to a foe).
* blind/confuse/paralyze monsters abilities that are actually useful beyond 500'.

TOME has a rush ability which allows you to close the distance to a ranged enemy quickly, but also exposes you to allies that you might not know are there. I think it's interesting, but being that Angband really values movement and player speed incredibly highly, I would recommend some slight modifications before we go this route. These include stuff like:

Limiting max_range for archery to something much lower. There's no good reason we should be dealing ranged combat from 18 squares out. 10 is sufficient.

Really penalize range strongly. Currently we have very weak penalties for each extra square of distance. We should increase this more. (This goes for the player too)

Give monsters limited arrows. Monster arrows should fall to the ground (or get mulched) just like player arrows.

Allow players to have ranged defense options. Maybe we can allow the player to slow their movement speed in order to gain a huge AC advantage on ranged attacks. Sort of like hunkering down behind your shield as you approach the enemy. Smart monsters would just run away and continue to pelt you from afar, but if they have limited arrows that may not work so well. The "shield" spell could be reworked for this purpose also.

[Derakon]

Allow players to have ranged defense options. Maybe we can allow the player to slow their movement speed in order to gain a huge AC advantage on ranged attacks. Sort of like hunkering down behind your shield as you approach the enemy. Smart monsters would just run away and continue to pelt you from afar, but if they have limited arrows that may not work so well. The "shield" spell could be reworked for this purpose also.

We could have a "ranged AC" stat separate from normal AC, which would be most strongly present on the larger shields and heavier body armors.

Or we could just make the existing AC affect ranged attacks, including spells and breaths. After all, if you're wearing heavy plate armor, you should be better-protected from a flash-fire/freeze/etc. attack than if you were just wearing a robe, all else being equal. I don't know what the mechanism of action is for being blasted by nether, chaos, or the other more abstract elements, but it seems reasonable to assume that they'd have a harder time penetrating through metal than leather or cloth.

[Nick]

We could have a "ranged AC" stat separate from normal AC, which would be most strongly present on the larger shields and heavier body armors.

Or have heavy armor and shields have a chance to deflect missiles altogether.

If no-one's noticed yet how much I'm borrowing from Oangband in all this, notice now

[Estie]

I remember a Diablo 1 guide that gave this advice to warriors about to face the Butcher: Buy a studded leather armour and go toe to toe.

Now in diablo 1, armour did the same it does in Angband: reduce the chance to get hit. This alone would not be enough to make above advice valid. The thing that made armour vital was the hitrecovery mechanic. If you get hit for a sufficient portion of your health, a threshold which a tough melee monster like the Butcher reaches, you enter hit recovery animation which prevents you from taking any action till it has ended. So without armour, you get locked in hit recovery without the ability to react. With armour, there are misses which allow you to take action, for attacking yourself or drinking a potion or disengaging and running away.

This could be copied for Angband: losing more than 20% or so life in one hit could remove some energy. It would be the solution to the 1-hit problem.

As a side note, wearing heavy armour in Diablo1 thus increases speed in combat whereas it reduces it in Angband.

[Cold_Heart]

Cone shaped breaths can be very dangerous.

Take a look at the poschengband implementation.

A breath in a 1-1.5 wide 20-30 degree angled tunnel can reach targets way, way out of LoS (behind numerous corners) while monster is beyond reach of any non-breath attack.

[Nick]

Cone shaped breaths can be very dangerous.

Take a look at the poschengband implementation.

A breath in a 1-1.5 wide 20-30 degree angled tunnel can reach targets way, way out of LoS (behind numerous corners) while monster is beyond reach of any non-breath attack.

The Vanilla implementation of cone-shaped breaths (taken from O) is very simple - it just makes a sector of a ball explosion centred on the breather, but with power only starting to drop off at a couple of grids from the centre. So breaths in V don't go around corners.

The Poscheng implementation is much more complex - as is the case with numerous other parts of Poschengband. I don't know how much of that was already in Hengband and how much Chris did, but it's deeply impressive. I intend to continue stealing ideas from it