Cone-shaped breaths

[PowerWyrm]

I was toying around with that feature while fixing an entertaining bug in PWMAngband (monsters were breathing at a random direction instead of breathing at the player), and it seems this will make breathers *much* less dangerous. No idea if this was intended, but a dracolich breathing nether at a player from 5-6 squares away will breathe for roughly 200 damage instead of the 500+ before, with maximum damage only obtained when the breather is at melee range.

[Nick]

It was introduced mainly to make breathers more tactically interesting - now the player has to consider how close the monster is as a component of its danger, rather than just how damaged it is. One nice side-effect of that is a reduction in offscreen breath instakills.

You are quite right that in isolation, this is a nerf to breathers, and may need rebalancing. The aim with preparations for 4.1 is to get all the mechanics in place, and then tweak the numbers where necessary.

[Derakon]

When you buff breathers to compensate, consider adding a buff to characters in melee range as well. Otherwise this is just another example of warriors getting screwed.

Maybe you have a chance based on DEX to be treated as if you're in an adjacent square when you get hit by the breath? At range this would have little effect (as all tiles are being hit for largely comparable amounts of damage), but up close it would result in dodging the breath entirely.

[fizzix]

To be honest, a nerf to breathers is a *very good thing* and we should be applauding it. The reason is because breaths are often 50% of health, even with resistance. The result is that having two breathers in line of sight is often instant death. This limits tactical situations and forces our hand with giving the player "cheap tricks" (like teleport other/banishment) to deal with the situation. It also limits level design because open levels are death traps.

As far as what Derakon suggests, I would recommend giving warriors some kind of buff that kicks in with multiple monsters in melee range. This is a staple for melee characters in other roguelikes.

[Estie]

For balancing the reduced breath damage, I could see an increase in _physical_ damage of monsters across the board.

As for warriors, it could be arranged such that warriors can wear armour, armour actually does something substancial and ranged fighters cannot wear armor. This would create an interesting setup imo. The biggest problem I see (apart from someone actually having to do all the coding...) is that it would remove the universal usability of all armour pieces that currently exists.

So we might end up with 2 classes of armour, creating a new subset of things useless to a part of the classes; still, I would like such a shift.

[Derakon]

I'd worry about how to balance making a large category of items useless to all but one class. Maybe if warriors had a special trait that multiplied the AC they got from armor, though?

But really, melee damage is already pretty well-balanced for the most part. There are plenty of enemies out there that hit really hard in melee. IMO the way to balance reduced breath damage is to reduce the mitigations the player has in exchange. What if *Healing* were removed from the game and Healing only restored 200HP? Then breaths would still be a significant threat -- not because a single breath would kill you, but because if you took two in a row then you were toast.

Of course, then we'd run into the fact that high-level fights would involve a lot more fleeing to run away. 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".

[wobbly]

As for warriors, it could be arranged such that warriors can wear armour, armour actually does something substancial and ranged fighters cannot wear armor. This would create an interesting setup imo. The biggest problem I see (apart from someone actually having to do all the coding...) is that it would remove the universal usability of all armour pieces that currently exists.

So how would that work out for warriors who are currently bow & melee to start with? Anyway I mostly agree that rebalancing should work the other way. Warriors currently have an answer to breathers in that they can shoot too. No where near the damage of a ranger but they have a fair bit more hps for sitting in LOS. Something to give archers more trouble in melee range would be good. It'd be nice to have more a reason for my ranger to switch to melee close in rather then just shooting point blank as well. Opportunistic hits or something. Then an archer needs to either phase away or switch or take more damage.

Re Derakon: There'd be a lot more ideas that'd work with a serious nerf to teleport. The no. of things I've thought of over the years where the answer was, "Nup the player would just teleport more"

[Estie]

I'd worry about how to balance making a large category of items useless to all but one class. Maybe if warriors had a special trait that multiplied the AC they got from armor, though?

But really, melee damage is already pretty well-balanced for the most part. There are plenty of enemies out there that hit really hard in melee. IMO the way to balance reduced breath damage is to reduce the mitigations the player has in exchange. What if *Healing* were removed from the game and Healing only restored 200HP? Then breaths would still be a significant threat -- not because a single breath would kill you, but because if you took two in a row then you were toast.

Of course, then we'd run into the fact that high-level fights would involve a lot more fleeing to run away. 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".

Not one class; melee vs ranged. Ranged would be mage, priest and ranger, melee everyone else, with rogue possibly having both options.

Armour could penalize spellcasting and archery in such a way that casters couldnt effectively use their attack spells while wearing too much of it, while utility spells should still be usable; how exactly to do this
is open for ideas. As for archery, a simple solution would be that wearing (too much) armour could reduce attack speed (i.e. shots/round).

One way to do this would be to base armour penalties (almost) entirely on the chestpiece, both for protection and penalty; while slightly nonsensical, it would leave all other armour pieces useable by everyone.

For example, base the penalty on the negative modifier that hitherto only affects attack roll and extend it to other things; plate mail (-3) could substract 2 (3-1) from shots/round (to a minimum of 1) and divide spelldamage by 3, or something along those lines.

[fizzix]

Of course, then we'd run into the fact that high-level fights would involve a lot more fleeing to run away. 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. We should probably start with some very basic metrics. Stuff like, how many turns should a battle take? What's the maximum expected damage (as % of hp) for a single turn in a at-level battle? What's the total expected damage? How many at-level monsters should you be able to engage without being overwhelmed?

Then we can start thinking about things like escapes, healing, teleport and the like.

[Estie]

One more thing that might be good to change is the effect of level. Currently, it is possible to fight monsters very much higher than the characters level; it might be a good idea to squeeze the window of killable monsters. For physical attacks, the flat to-hit curve could be reshaped, which as a side effect would also increase the impact of to-hit from equipment. For spells, a new level-dependant resistance would have to be introduced.

This is the way it works in all the mmos I know. If a monster is 10 levels higher, it doesnt matter what kind of equipment you have, you cant win a confrontation. An out of depth troll becomes a serious threat, and out of depth dragon at hill orc level shouldnt happen anymore at all.

[Pete Mack]

There already was a change to balance this, at least to some extent. Archery range is now limited according to the damage multiplier (or at least I think it is.)

[Derakon]

One more thing that might be good to change is the effect of level. Currently, it is possible to fight monsters very much higher than the characters level; it might be a good idea to squeeze the window of killable monsters. For physical attacks, the flat to-hit curve could be reshaped, which as a side effect would also increase the impact of to-hit from equipment. For spells, a new level-dependant resistance would have to be introduced.

This is the way it works in all the mmos I know. If a monster is 10 levels higher, it doesnt matter what kind of equipment you have, you cant win a confrontation. An out of depth troll becomes a serious threat, and out of depth dragon at hill orc level shouldnt happen anymore at all.

This is a very easy and very hamfisted way to balance games. I always resent being told "no, you can't be effective in this fight because you haven't done enough grinding yet" even if my gear and my personal skill as a player are up to snuff.

In fact, personally I would rather limit the effects of level to just HP growth, access to class-specific abilities (like pFear for warriors or extra shots for rangers), access to spells, and maybe spell failure rates. That seems like plenty enough reward for grinding to me. If the player wants to play a high-risk strategy where they fight dangerous monsters despite being behind the curve on HP and lacking access to high-level abilities, good for them! It should be hard, but it shouldn't be artificially hard, which is the way I feel it is when level directly figures into the combat calculations.

[Estie]

This has nothing to do with balance, how would it ?

What it does is make it so much easier to create a challenge. Currently, the only way to prevent @ from killing a monster is to give it an instakill breath. The proposed change would give the monster defences based on level difference.


As for grinding, you kill many things to get loot & xp now, and that would remain the same.

The reason I want this change is that at the moment, the winning strategy is to avoid tough fights. This is because loot from monsters is lacklustre, and the reason for that is that @s ability to kill deep monsters is very spiky, meaning with a lucky find, @ can kill way out of depth monsters very early. So if monster drops were better, it would become too easy for people with a good start.

What I would prefer is to tweak risk/reward such that taking on tough monsters should be rewarding enough to be considered. And for that to work, level dependent defense is one approach. You can give dragons better loot if lvl 20 @s have a harder time killing it, and if you do, lvl 20 @ might waste some consumables to try.

The best way to kill @ is to tempt him, and currently tough monsters arent tempting at all, once you develop the right mindset.

[Derakon]

This has nothing to do with balance, how would it ?

It ensures that players who attempt to step outside the narrow band of "allowed" challenges are punished for it, by being made to face monsters they cannot possibly defeat. Which means that for any given monster, you know pretty clearly how powerful the player will be (they will be a character of at least X character level), which makes balancing easier.

The problem with it is that it also makes the game incredibly predictable. You know that no matter what else happens in the game, you will be grinding that experience treadmill, starting with weak monsters, then moving on to slightly less weak, etc. etc. etc. until you've finally hit that arbitrary number that means that you're allowed to go face Sauron/Morgoth. You know exactly what's going to happen over the course of the game; you may not know the exact details, and finding the occasional awesome item may slightly speed up the curve (or the lack thereof may slow it down), but you still know that you're going to hit every single point on it. And that's boring.

What it does is make it so much easier to create a challenge. Currently, the only way to prevent @ from killing a monster is to give it an instakill breath. The proposed change would give the monster defences based on level difference.

Which means that in addition to the existing limits of not facing monsters unless you can survive their attacks and deal reasonable damage to them, you also have the arbitrary restriction of not facing a monster until you've ground enough experience first.

As for grinding, you kill many things to get loot & xp now, and that would remain the same.

Only as long as you're following the designated experience curve that the game sets out in its data files by assigning levels to monsters. Right now if I feel that my skill curve is faster than that experience curve, then I can dive and face monsters that I "shouldn't" be fighting. And if I'm right, then I profit from it! And if I'm wrong I die.

The reason I want this change is that at the moment, the winning strategy is to avoid tough fights. This is because loot from monsters is lacklustre, and the reason for that is that @s ability to kill deep monsters is very spiky, meaning with a lucky find, @ can kill way out of depth monsters very early. So if monster drops were better, it would become too easy for people with a good start.

What I would prefer is to tweak risk/reward such that taking on tough monsters should be rewarding enough to be considered. And for that to work, level dependent defense is one approach. You can give dragons better loot if lvl 20 @s have a harder time killing it, and if you do, lvl 20 @ might waste some consumables to try.

I'm reading your thesis as "people are afraid to get into fights with dangerous monsters, so we should make those monsters more dangerous and then give them better loot to compensate." But a dangerous monster is a dangerous monster; I'm not going to engage unless I know that it's my only option for getting good loot. And it's not. So I won't engage. Making the monster even more dangerous for an underleveled character just exacerbates the problem.

The best way to kill @ is to tempt him, and currently tough monsters arent tempting at all, once you develop the right mindset.

And basing formulae off of level will only make this problem worse.

[Estie]

*Sigh*

Basing formulae off level lets the game maker predict how hard it will be for @ to kill out of depth monster. Because the window is narrower. The main effect is to prevent extreme spikes, like a 4 attack warrior with Azhagal who can take on a great hell wyrm.

To tempt @, you need to KNOW what he can kill and what not, and currently you have to assume that a @ can kill monsters 20 levels over his head. Why is it so horrible to make sure there are some things @ cant kill yet ?