how to balance rangers.

[A Magical Lamp]

I don't think it'd be particularly fair to just nerf Ranger's endgame strength. They're a very power spike-y class, they need to be that strong to justify how annoying it can be to get them there. You'd need to flatten out their whole power curve and I'm not sure how you'd do it since the class is fundamentally built around using finite ammunition.

[Derakon]

I don't think it'd be particularly fair to just nerf Ranger's endgame strength. They're a very power spike-y class, they need to be that strong to justify how annoying it can be to get them there. You'd need to flatten out their whole power curve and I'm not sure how you'd do it since the class is fundamentally built around using finite ammunition.

They wouldn't need to be so strong if it weren't as annoying to get them there. Hence my suggestions to a) reduce the tedium of using archery, and b) even out the power curve a bit. It doesn't need to be a flat power curve (maybe a late-game ranger "spell" could be Fast Shot, which just fires twice in a row), but the current endgame is a little ridiculous and the current early game is a little punitive.

[Pete Mack]

Well, angband used to fire all the extra shots in a single turn. One of the strengths of rangers is that extra shots do take fractional turns. (And yes, I understand the tedium, you can again make a keymap that keeps firing but disturbs on movement.) This makes for all sorts of opportunities, in particular:
* guaranteeing faster monsters out of LOS don't get the first move when the come around the corner. This saves a bit on guaranteed escapes, and also always lets you get a knight-move shot, even for faster monsters.
* giving you an extra shot or two prior to using phase to avoid melee.
The latter I use a whole lot. The former, almost never, because it's a bit tedious not to just rest until the monster is visible.

So I actually like the possibility of fractional turns. Note that using a spell adds even more tedium.

[Derakon]

Well, angband used to fire all the extra shots in a single turn. One of the strengths of rangers is that extra shots do take fractional turns. (And yes, I understand the tedium, you can again make a keymap that keeps firing but disturbs on movement.) This makes for all sorts of opportunities, in particular:
* guaranteeing faster monsters out of LOS don't get the first move when the come around the corner. This saves a bit on guaranteed escapes, and also always lets you get a knight-move shot, even for faster monsters.
* giving you an extra shot or two prior to using phase to avoid melee.
The latter I use a whole lot. The former, almost never, because it's a bit tedious not to just rest until the monster is visible.

So I actually like the possibility of fractional turns. Note that using a spell adds even more tedium.

I don't disagree with you re: the power that fractional turns provide, but it's a subtle power that most players need to have explained to them (we should not assume that the average player reads these forums, for example). It's also frankly a kind of weird power, and I think I'd be happier if we had fewer strange interactions with the time/energy system.

Spells can be keymapped too, you know. And it's not so much the act of firing that I find tedious with rangers, it's the inventory management of all of the individual ammo pieces. And having to pick them up again after firing them, but I'm not sure how to fix that one without making ammo either one-use-only (greatly exacerbating inventory strain as you'd need to carry more ammo) or implicit (greatly reducing inventory strain as you'd no longer need to carry ammo at all).

My goal with the suggestions I made was to turn the ranger from a class that's powerful in strange and over-subtle ways to one that's powerful in more overt, straightforward ways. And also to reduce tedium. Plus I think adding more spells is a great way to differentiate classes because it gives them extra abilities that can be invoked on demand.

(Also, I don't ever recall playing a Vanilla where extra shots were fired automatically)

[Estie]

Myself I am torn: on the one hand, I would love to get rid of the tedium and simplify archery (for example, by removing ammo alltogether; you just buy/find "quivers of ammo X", equip it, and from there on are able to shoot arrow type X indefinitely).
On the other hand I love the burst aspect that limited stacks of special ammo provide. My main gripe is in fact not even the hassle so much as the situation that there is very little worth bursting. The ability to easily kill uniques is devalued by the fact that there is little profit from killing uniques. You can flatten Ungoliant in a few turns, so what, if she gives you trouble, just leave her alive.

As for "balance":

I hate games where, come lategame, the archer has to pump every single monster full of multiple quivers of arrows to kill it. Diablo I is such a one, where you have to repair your bow after every encounter (and people basically stopped using archery in the endgame).

The rule I would set here is that in the time it takes a normal monster to cross the room into melee range, it should be possible to substantially reduce its health by shooting, below 50% or so. "Normal" here means anything that can appear in masses, so includes things like greater demons. If this rule in a hassle-less situation leads to too easy a game for the ranger, I would look to reduce his defenses to keep up the challenge.

[Pete Mack]

@estie--your estimate of how many arrows are necessary seems a bit high. True, if you are using lots of unenchanted ordinary ammo, you need lot. But you can generally avoid it by keeping your powder dry*: nearly all dangerous uniques are vulnerable to one or another slay or brand. (And if you don't have the right slay, just avoid the monster.) Assuming a suitable brand and 300 dam/shot, you need roughly 40 hits to kill even Ungoliant (the highest HP unique short of Morgoth). That is one quiver, plus a little mopping up with melee once she is down to 1 star and no longer a threat.
Earlier in the game, monsters tend to have around 1-2000 HP, so again, that's roughly 10-20 shots, assuming 100 dam/shot (no ego ammo, but enchanted.) Morgoth really is the exception: very high AC and HP combine for roughly 100 arrows of Slay Evil/Holy Might. (That's for an x4 bow with high to_dam. For an uber Lothlorien, or Bard, it is less.)

* mixed metaphor intentional

[Estie]

Oh I wasnt implying that current Vanilla requires too many arrows; on the contrary, it feels about right, I concur with you. But, if tedium gets reduced by measures like infinte ammo, designers might be tempted to reduce the damage per arrow to counter that, and that would then likely lead to plink plink archery.

I was just formulating a general rule of thumb for when archery feels right to me.

[Pete Mack]

The trouble comes in with the third shot and infinite +10 branded ammo. Then you are pretty reliably doing up to 1000+ per turn. The only weapon that compares is the Mod +2 attacks vs Undead. (Which in this game I also had ...although only after killing Sauron, so it was a bit too late to hunt down Cantoras and Vecna.)

[Derakon]

Yeah, another possible rebalancing I considered suggesting was to start rangers with +1 shot and not give them a third shot. That way they're pretty good at archery throughout the game (including in the crucial early game where they're currently somewhat garbage), but don't get ridiculously broken in the late game.

I never personally bothered with branding/enchanting ammo because it's boring. I wouldn't remotely object to removal of those spells.

[Pete Mack]

Branding ammo is easy. I don't see how it can be boring, since it doesn't take any time. I agree enchanting is boring. The only ammo I commonly enchant is if it's an early, underpowered stack of Slay Evil or Acid Brand, which I try to get to +10,+10. It's simply too valuable to waste. Otherwise, I stick with the modest enchantment granted by brand ammo.

[Nick]

The plan is for a redoing of classes with a reduction of spells in 4.2; I'm expecting rangers to change a bit there.

[kaypy]

Last time I played a ranger, I wound up hacking in a crude pathfind-to-nearest-ammo-on-ground mechanism. Essentially a run mode for cleaning up after the fight.

That made dealing with ammo a fair bit less obnoxious...

[Pete Mack]

@kaypy--that is a great idea! Please do share the code.

[kaypy]

Sorry, I'm trying to remember how long ago it was and I think it might have been in the '90s (and the code is long gone)...

Also it was a seriously trashy hack job.

I may have to try resurrecting it and maybe do a bit better a job of it...

IIRC, the basic mechanism was allowing
1) Target an item by type (I think by cval)
and
2) Run towards the target (I started with another hack I had to make a 'melee closest enemy' button analogous to the common mages 'just magic missile whatever' hotkey, these days it would just be a matter of commandeering the mouse based movement)

combined with some macro stuff.

[brbrbr]

Pete, it's not Ranger that's imbalanced, it's Randarts.

After 7 games of Rogue+randart I am back to Ranger+standarts and the difference is noticeable. Lot of early drops like Westernesse, Bow of Power, Boots of Wormtongue, etc. on dl20. I wouldn't see that on randarts unitl dl 40 or so.

Somebody else on the forum also mentioned that randarts are harder in the earlier game and easier at the end. That's how it feels for me.