High resists

[Nomad]

They're right, though -- there's a lot of info on the sidebar that doesn't need to be displayed all the time. That could be removed to make room for other information. Just because the player can add extra windows doesn't mean we should assume they are, or be wasteful of window space.

If you cut the IMO wholly unnecessary race/class/title lines, you've got nine lines to play with at the minimum screen size. (Also, hi, I am that weirdo who still plays Angband in a single window at the minimum possible size! I play during downtime while I'm working and switch between windows a lot, so it's more convenient that way.)

This was my previous suggestion for a sidebar resistance display:

[BC=black]             
 rAcid  [COLOR="#C00000"]----[/COLOR] 
 rElec  [COLOR="#FFFF00"]x1/3[/COLOR] 
 rFire  [COLOR="#00FF00"]x1/9[/COLOR] 
 rCold  [COLOR="#008040"]****[/COLOR] 
             
 P [COLOR="#FF8000"]L[/COLOR] D [COLOR="#FFFF00"]So[/COLOR] Sh 
  [COLOR="#9020FF"]Nx[/COLOR] [COLOR="#00FF00"]Nt[/COLOR] C [COLOR="#FF00FF"]D[/COLOR]  
             [/BC]

[Derakon]

Yeah, the Pyrel display wasn't dissimilar to the second half of your example. But if we're to unify basic and high resist behaviors, then IMO they should all display the information that's displayed in the top half, i.e. how much damage is reduced by. Of course there's not enough space to use the format you proposed for every element, so it'd have to be something more like this (apologies for being uncolored, but I'm trying to represent the same state as in your example):

Ac-- Ey33
Fr11 Cd0!
Pn-- Nx33
Lt33 Dk--
So33 Sh--
Cs-- Ds33
Nt33

In other words, the numbers indicate the percentage damage you take from the element, with -- meaning no resistance.

That's 7 rows and 9 columns per row. Your example is 11 columns wide, so I guess we could actually use 3-letter element names. Acd/Elc/Fir/Cld/Psn/Lit/Drk/Snd/Shd/Nxs/Ntr/Chs/Dst?

[gameplay appreciator]

Off the topic of this thread, but are you aware that you can open more windows and change what they display? There is already a current target window that shows the recall information for the current target and a monster list.

I am aware of these windows and options surrounding them, but I am not a big believer in that design. I think a sidebar HUD that allows you to rotate through concise listings of pertinent information with a keystroke would be far better.

In any case, I am not aware of any place the game tells you how much damage a breath weapon can do at a given range, which would be a nice addition to monster recall listings or any HUD that might appear in the future.

[Antoine]

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.

My intuition across a range of fantasy games and fiction, is that some elements sound very physically destructive (such as fire, chaos or nether), while others sound more focused on side effects than on sheer destructive force (such as sound, dark or disenchantment).

YMMV

A.

[wobbly]

My intuition across a range of fantasy games and fiction, is that some elements sound very physically destructive (such as fire, chaos or nether), while others sound more focused on side effects than on sheer destructive force (such as sound, dark or disenchantment).

YMMV

A.

That sort of makes sense to me for the ball spells but breathe damage in angband is hp based. For high end sound damage it's a massive gold dragon breathing raw sound at you. I'd picture that as a fairly physically destructive force.

[Derakon]

That sort of makes sense to me for the ball spells but breathe damage in angband is hp based. For high end sound damage it's a massive gold dragon breathing raw sound at you. I'd picture that as a fairly physically destructive force.

Even if it basically amounts to a dragon looking at you and going "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHH"

[fizzix]

The sidebar adjustments probably should be done at some point. But it still doesn't help answer the important question. If I have 1/3 multiplier on fire, and the great hell wyrm is 5 squares away, and at 8/10 health, how much damage will I suffer if it breathes on me?

Even more problematic are the spells that have random effects like 10d12 or whatever.

The best you can do is update the monster recall so it displays currently the damage you might suffer from each attack you know the monster has (at its current HP). You could go a step further and shade monsters in the game window or elsewhere based on whether they are capable of dealing some fraction of your current HP. But this seems heavy handed.

I don't have any good solutions here. It's been a problem I've had with angband gameplay for a long time. And I haven't seen any roguelike that does it better. (Tome is much much worse, and DCSS is pretty much in the same boat.)

[Derakon]

The sidebar adjustments probably should be done at some point. But it still doesn't help answer the important question. If I have 1/3 multiplier on fire, and the great hell wyrm is 5 squares away, and at 8/10 health, how much damage will I suffer if it breathes on me?

About all I can think of is modifying the visible monsters list (or some similar data display) to include the peak damage the monster can do, given what you know about them and what you know about yourself. I don't know what exactly the conic breath damage falloff is, but say the Great Wyrm is still at the damage cap for point-blank damage, then, that'd be something like 1600 base * .5 for distance * .33 for resist = 264, so 264 would be displayed in the visible monster list. If you wanted to figure out how it was able to do that much damage, you'd look in its monster memory and see the list of attacks it can make.

If we did have such a feature, then the monster list of course should be sorted by peak damage capability first and foremost.

[Nick]

I don't have any good solutions here.

Hate to be repetitive, but I think Nomad has it right again:

I feel like it might be a good move to adapt the "Show damage player deals to monsters" option to display all forms of damage in numerical form - monster on player as well as vice versa, and including damage from things like spells, wands, breaths, etc. rather than just physical damage. (I know the monster damage information is technically already available by monitoring your HP, but it's much easier to grasp what's going on if you read "The Hellbound breathes fire (44)" than if you're trying to calculate 313-269 in the middle of a busy battle situation.)

It would still be a case of discovering how much damage things can do by getting hit once and knowing better for next time, but that kind of learning by trial and error is a grand roguelike tradition, and it would allow experienced players to learn ballpark estimates for things like how much breath damage drops with distance.

This seems an entirely reasonable approach to me (also, we need to introduce Hellbounds).

As a side note, I think we're getting more end more spoilt on what knowledge the game should give us. The monster knowledge menu is two keypresses, and contains max damage for all spells and breaths, and anyone who chooses can have full monster memory. One might even argue that not handing all the knowledge to the player on a plate encourages thoughtful play

[Nomad]

The best you can do is update the monster recall so it displays currently the damage you might suffer from each attack you know the monster has (at its current HP).

I guess you could maybe reformat the attack knowledge on the recall screen to be in some kind of table form. Show current possible damage vs max possible, with the damage colour-coded based on your HP. I haven't really thought the details through, but this kind of thing:

[BC=black]
 attack         | effect | dam. | max 
 ---------------|--------|------|-----
 breathe poison | poison |  [COLOR="#FF8000"]244[/COLOR] | [COLOR="#C00000"]733[/COLOR] 
 fire missile   |   --   |   [COLOR="#FFFF00"]30[/COLOR] |  [COLOR="#FFFF00"]30[/COLOR] 
 claw           |   --   | [COLOR="#FFFF00"]3d10[/COLOR] |  [COLOR="#FFFF00"]30[/COLOR] 
[/BC]

[Derakon]

I guess you could maybe reformat the attack knowledge on the recall screen to be in some kind of table form. Show current possible damage vs max possible, with the damage colour-coded based on your HP. I haven't really thought the details through, but this kind of thing:

I once rigged up a grid-based memory for Morgoth. It just barely fit into an 80x24 view. I ported it to Pyrel, not that that code does a good job of communicating how it looks in practice.

If we allowed a scrollable display of monster memory (presumably putting the flavor text at the bottom, so it's the first thing to be pushed below the fold) then that would alleviate some space pressure.

[bio_hazard]

Even if it basically amounts to a dragon looking at you and going "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHH"

Hey, it worked in Dune

[gameplay appreciator]

Here's how I would do this:

Each monster appears in the sidebar with a health bar and a concise message that gives you the maximum damage it can put on you in the coming turn. Sort by max damage, stuff with low max damage will naturally fall off the list.

Monsters that can hit you for more than you currently have get red background color on the map in terminal (with some accommodation made for the case the foreground color is also red).