High resists

[Nick]

The 'emergent property' of the existing system is the possibility of 'bad rolls'.

I am thinking of an emergent property as one where different game mechanics interact to create complex situations; a bad roll here is a direct, but obscure, outcome of a single mechanic. While I like the current system mathematically, I think it is confusing for a newcomer learning the game, and we aren't really looking for more barriers to entry

The reason I am advocating the existing mechanism is that it does the opposite: the resists are in the 'nice to have' category.

Yes, I like this about the current system too. I think that could be retained with fixed damage reduction and caps, though. If we were to take that as a given, where would you set the values?

Keep in mind with all this that I am looking at significant adjustment to the monster list, including introducing new monsters, adjusting the depths of current ones, changing movement (and maybe spellcasting) AI, introducing new spells (including some with combinations of damage types), and giving existing attack types extra side-effects when unresisted.

[Nick]

Unresisted basic element caps at 1600, so single resist caps at 533, which is kind of an odd number.

A number is either odd or it isn't

*runs*

[Antoine]

I think it's a little bit too neat if every high element has the same damage cap. Also, on the face of it, some of them (e.g. nether) seem like they should be more damaging than others (e.g. sound). There should be a range of caps.

[Derakon]

I think it's a little bit too neat if every high element has the same damage cap. Also, on the face of it, some of them (e.g. nether) seem like they should be more damaging than others (e.g. sound). There should be a range of caps.

What do you feel this adds to the game? Keep in mind that if we eliminate complexity in this area, it frees up more "mental space" (in the mind of someone learning the game for the first time) to add more complexity elsewhere.

[Pete Mack]

Increased damage and increased resistance makes 'grind for the perfect kit' more attractive to newbie (and everyone else.) I am not convinced this is the right way to go.

[Nick]

Increased damage and increased resistance makes 'grind for the perfect kit' more attractive to newbie (and everyone else.) I am not convinced this is the right way to go.

Agreed, but I'm not saying increased damage and increased resistance. I'm saying fixed resistance (across high elements (excluding Poison, which I like as it is)) and damage caps. For example, we could say 1/7 damage reduction and 550 damage cap, so everyone gets the worst case of Nether all the time

[Antoine]

What do you feel this adds to the game?

Believability

Probably adds a bit of interest to kit decisions as well, choosing between high resists

A.

[Derakon]

Believability

Could you explain this a bit further? Making the equipment minigame more interesting I can understand, but why is it less believable if all elements have the same damage cap? Why should chaos necessarily be more destructive than light (where there's no real limit on how many photons you can shove at something), or nether more destructive than sound (where, again, there's no limit on how loud something can be)? I'm not trying to do an "appeal to reality" here, just saying that just because we're used to some elements being "weenie elements" that are never going to be relevant damage-wise, doesn't mean that that's automatically more plausible than them all sharing the same cap.

[gameplay appreciator]

Best way to deal with high resists is to:

1. remove many of the elemental damage types
2. make some of those that remain irresistible
3. make remaining high resists and base resistances harder to get
4. make damage reductions and caps consistent across the board
5. combine some resistances, e.g. dark and blind

[Pete Mack]

The *best* way to fix high elements is to bring back confusion and bronze dragons.

[Thraalbee]

The *best* way to fix high elements is to bring back confusion and bronze dragons.

I miss them too

[Estie]

I would like to see what happens if basically all resistable high elements do the same damage as poison and the appropriate resists reduce it just like poison resistance does.

The lategame would become much more dangerous; or, more appropriately, it would stay very dangerous, as dangerous as a low hp diver experiences it at the start, and the state of safety that you typically reach long before being ready for the end fights would be delayed till much, much later or, in any normal game, would not be achieved at all before going for the final bosses.

To kill anything that totes weird elements you´d need swap items and you´d not be able to kill everything you encounter, even with high damage output and ~700 hit points - the point at which you are able to, currently.

At the very least, it would solve the boring grinding phase before the end

It might be a good idea to increase frequency of teleport other wands again if doing this, or maybe use other "tuning" measures, but on the whole, I want to play this and see.

[Pete Mack]

@Estie--
It's really easy to test this. Just edit the list-elements.h file, and make every entry that has resistance to read like poison. I suspect you will end up doing more grinding, not less.

[Estie]

@Estie--
It's really easy to test this. Just edit the list-elements.h file, and make every entry that has resistance to read like poison. I suspect you will end up doing more grinding, not less.

I am not expecting the game to last shorter. But "grinding" has been used in conjunction with the late game to indicate a boring chore, not with the early stages that are more dangerous. So unless you look at all the gameplay as "grind", how will it have more of it with the changes ?

And thanks, I will try that.

[Derakon]

I am not expecting the game to last shorter. But "grinding" has been used in conjunction with the late game to indicate a boring chore, not with the early stages that are more dangerous. So unless you look at all the gameplay as "grind", how will it have more of it with the changes ?

And thanks, I will try that.

Yes, we need to differentiate between "the game will take longer" and "the game requires more grinding". Grinding is performing repetitive but "rewarding" (in terms of gear, experience, etc.) tasks, particularly ones that are largely safe. Ideally it would not be possible at all, but with a game with as large a power curve as Angband has that doesn't seem likely to be achievable without rules like forced-descent.

Making monsters more powerful can potentially result in grinding, if players (are able to) refuse to go anywhere near those monsters without having the relevant resists. If the player must engage with those monsters anyway, even if only by sneaking past them, then I'd say we aren't dealing with an increase in grinding.

It still might not be the kind of playstyle we want, of course. I'm not convinced that we ought to be making more monsters capable of one-shotting the player, for example. But I'm willing to give Nick the benefit of the doubt; he seems to have made basically sound decisions up to this point, for the most part.