Class/magic feature branch

[Estie]

Just spellcaster mana.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Encumbrance for reducing mana is determined by the "spell weight" in the magic line in class.txt; weight effects on speed depend only on strength.

Doesn't weight also have an affect on to-hit chances? Not only the [-#] of certain armour, but when player gets a message, "The weight of your armour encumbers your movement." Even though speed is unaffected. That's not just spell casters mana, is it? What is that encumbrance, if not on to-hit?

[Estie]

Well, the priest gets glorious orb which is good enough to make me replace a damage weapon with a wisdom one to maximize its effectiveness. If it isnt already, the druids combat shape can perceivably fill a similar role, but what in the arsenal of the necromancer have you intended to be that phase-defining ability ?

Also, I find the necromancer lacking in late game power. Vampire shape is not very safe to use because of the inbuild hp loss; more often than not ive gotten myself into more trouble than I had been in if I had just used straightforward melee.

I would suggest making the spell more effective that increases damage on low hp foes (forgot the name). Not "a little more damage than before", but rather "take off the last 3 stars of any monster regardless of its hps". That would be something worthwhile to look forward to during the grind, while still requiring the painful routine for Morgoth or other bosses for the first 70%. And I mean stars, so you can immediately see when you should use it.

[Nick]

Nick -

I think you are trying something that is impossible, that is fitting in characters with better melee and worse spell damage than the mage in the early/mid game. This results in grindy melee becoming the best option, both for druid and for necromancer.

As it stands, the mage spell damage is of bare minimum to make it more worthwhile than mage melee. Increasing melee or reducing spellcasting even by a little will result in melee becoming the best option.

If you really want to go that route, you need to either nerf melee over the board or increase mage spell damage, to create a window where druid and necro can sit.

I think the same argument as you make for druids and necromancers can be made for priests. So my answer is the same as it would be for priests - they need to use melee, but supported by spells. So where priests use buffs and healing, druids use monster status and shapechanging. Necros should be using "dark arts"; I agree that their early/mid game spells need some work.

In short, mages are really the only class with spells only as an option; the other "pure casters" will need some melee at at least some point in the game. I like the way you have been talking recently about phases of the game for different classes - I hope that the new classes are converging to having sensible play patterns.

Where is encumbrance determined then? I always thought it was part of the class.txt file. What determines that "the weight of your armour encumbers your movement"? Is it just strength? I always thought the warrior was not encumbered as quickly as the mage, even with equivalent strengths, and always thought it had to do with the min-weight value.

Encumbrance for reducing mana is determined by the "spell weight" in the magic line in class.txt; weight effects on speed depend only on strength.

By the way, any thoughts about my remaining foreseen light malus issues expressed up-thread in my ante-penultimate post?

I think RLight would be the way to go if we were doing a fix, although I also kind of like the idea that necros just need to always consider light as in issue (at least until they get strong enough that the failure rate penalty goes away). I think a decision on that should wait for some more playtesting.

Why would you give less HP to rogue than rangers? The rogue is a melee class!

The rogue was a melee class

Seriously, I think if you want to focus on melee, warrior, paladin or blackguard are the classes to play. Ranger and rogue both have decent melee, but rely also on stealth other things (archery and "woodcraft" for rangers, theft and trickery for rogues). As to which gets more HP - I think it's kind of a toss-up.

[Pete Mack]

Why would you give less HP to rogue than rangers? The rogue is a melee class!

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Min-weight is for use in the strength calculation for blows calculation....

Makes sense, even though the description in class.txt is opaque. It's interesting to me how things I long believed turn out to be completely wrong. Where is encumbrance determined then? I always thought it was part of the class.txt file. What determines that "the weight of your armour encumbers your movement"? Is it just strength? I always thought the warrior was not encumbered as quickly as the mage, even with equivalent strengths, and always thought it had to do with the min-weight value.

By the way, any thoughts about my remaining foreseen light malus issues expressed up-thread in my ante-penultimate post?

[Estie]

Nick -

I think you are trying something that is impossible, that is fitting in characters with better melee and worse spell damage than the mage in the early/mid game. This results in grindy melee becoming the best option, both for druid and for necromancer.

As it stands, the mage spell damage is of bare minimum to make it more worthwhile than mage melee. Increasing melee or reducing spellcasting even by a little will result in melee becoming the best option.

If you really want to go that route, you need to either nerf melee over the board or increase mage spell damage, to create a window where druid and necro can sit.

[Nick]

Double-clicking save file used to open the app and game, but now get a “Too many (404) object kinds!” error message. However, can still open the save file by launching the app and using Cmd-O to open the file.

That's just weird.

Class.txt descriptions of *attack* - the line is not used, but is instead now divided into separate lines of their own. Also min-weight doesn’t track - pounds? Is it weight of weapon? Is it weight carried in pack and on body at which point @ will start to suffer degradation of to-hit ability (I thought it was the latter). Certainly the number doesn’t track to weapon weight.

Thanks, missed the description.

Min-weight is for use in the strength calculation for blows calculation, which is

strength_value * strength_multiplier / weight

where

• strength_value is from a table (climbs slowly to 20 at STR 18, and then goes up by 10 for every point (ie 18/10, 18/20, ...) of strength)
• strength-multiplier is as in class.txt, and is basically a fudge to decide which classes progress in blows faster
• weight is the weapon weight or min-weight, whichever is larger.

The resulting value (capped at 11) is then used as an index into the blows table (a table for DEX is the other index). I sometimes feel that simplifying these calculations would be a worthy goal...

This should explain some of the changes - rogues start with a dagger because it actually stands to give them more blows, mages get a rapier because anything lighter is a waste, ditto blackguards for getting a cutlass.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

A couple bugs:

Double-clicking save file used to open the app and game, but now get a “Too many (404) object kinds!” error message. However, can still open the save file by launching the app and using Cmd-O to open the file.

Class.txt descriptions of *attack* - the line is not used, but is instead now divided into separate lines of their own. Also min-weight doesn’t track - pounds? Is it weight of weapon? Is it weight carried in pack and on body at which point @ will start to suffer degradation of to-hit ability (I thought it was the latter). Certainly the number doesn’t track to weapon weight.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

... with the following changes:

• Double values of extra shots appearing on egos and standarts, and ranger shot bonus - still about half what they were before;
• Changes to blows calculations, the interesting bits being:
  • Druids, necros and blackguards get 5 blows max;
  • Strength multipliers (which affect how quickly the class gets more blows) are: Mage - 2; Priest, Druid, Necro - 3; Rogue, Ranger - 4; Warrior, Paladin, Blackguard - 5;
  • Rogues minimum weapon weight for blows calculations is now 2 pounds, so they can get more blows by using light weapons; blackguards' minimum is 10 pounds, so they may as well use heavy weapons;
  • Starting weapons have been changed to be more sensible in line with the above changes;
• Necro penalty for being on a lit square is now the same as the priest's sharp weapon penalty;
• Class hitdice are now: Mage - 0; Druid, Priest, Necro - 2; Rogue - 4; Ranger - 5; Paladin - 6; Blackguard - 7; Warrior - 9.

Suicided my feature branch Necromancer. Played on angband.live. http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=21614

Not willing to grind to CL50 just for hps and hope of a great extra blows weapon. New build supposedly resolves some of the problems. I'll wait for the comp and Gwarl's update of angband.live.

42d level, max Con, + 7 Con gear, and still only 566 hps. Pick of Erebor still better than going in darkness, because of it's Con bonus.

In addition, 42d level, max Str and Max Dex, lot's of pluses to damage, and Erebor only gives 256 vs. acid, and 185 vs. others. Absolutely pathetic fighting, even with maxed stats, reasonably high level, and good damage bonuses.

Just looking at the numbers Nick has given for the new build, it might resolve some of the problem, though I have my doubts about the mage. At least a druid will finally have a starting weapon and Necro Con malus might be more reasonable.

I'd like to see a comparison of the numbers with current Vanilla. Comparing the class.txt file of Vanilla, the hit dice look reasonable - a slight improvement for rangers and moving rogues to just below rangers rather than two dice better. Necros and druids comparable with priests. Blackguards a few behind warriors. Yes, the hit dice make sense to me. The attack multipliers also look in line. Not sure what minimum weapon weight comparison is, as I don't see it in the edit files of Vanilla.


On the Necro Con/Spell malus - I forsee a couple more issues:

Door jamb light. - Each lighted room (even including town shops) has door jamb light (i.e., light that spills into the corridor). When @ steps on the spot just outside the room, @ is in the light. For a Necro to avoid the sudden drop in hps or increase in spell failure rate, @ must cast darkness twice - once to kill the door jamb light before stepping outside the room, and once to kill the light in the room (and perversely, if not double cast, @ has a worse chance of casting darkness). Not noticeable at lower CLs, but at the end-game, a sudden drop in Con or spell failure just for stepping outside a lighted room will result in a significant loss of hps that have to be regained by healing or regeneration over time or an admittedly less lengthy, but still potentially deadly, failure rate.

"Blessed" or Blunt vs. Light. - Unlike priests, that have access to blessed or blunt weapons and suddenly have no spell failure malus, light is ubiquitous. Many of the artifact weapons have light. Many monsters generate light. Light is all over in the terrain and dungeon. Not sure of the solution. Perhaps a mid-level spell buff - "Light Immunity"? What about scrolls, staves, and spells of Darkness also giving a timed light immunity? Or, what about no Con or spell failure malus to a Necro if they have rLight covered? One or more of these solutions, or others. I like the last proposed solution best.

Edits: Compared Vanilla edit files regarding hit dice, blows, attack multiplier, (but not min weapon weight?); talked about Con OR spell failure rate (don't know which malus will eventually win out); some grammar corrections.

[Nick]

New builds for Windows and macOS up on the build page (and source zipfile) with the following changes:

• Double values of extra shots appearing on egos and standarts, and ranger shot bonus - still about half what they were before;
• Changes to blows calculations, the interesting bits being:
  • Druids, necros and blackguards get 5 blows max;
  • Strength multipliers (which affect how quickly the class gets more blows) are: Mage - 2; Priest, Druid, Necro - 3; Rogue, Ranger - 4; Warrior, Paladin, Blackguard - 5;
  • Rogues minimum weapon weight for blows calculations is now 2 pounds, so they can get more blows by using light weapons; blackguards' minimum is 10 pounds, so they may as well use heavy weapons;
  • Starting weapons have been changed to be more sensible in line with the above changes;
• Necro penalty for being on a lit square is now the same as the priest's sharp weapon penalty;
• Class hitdice are now: Mage - 0; Druid, Priest, Necro - 2; Rogue - 4; Ranger - 5; Paladin - 6; Blackguard - 7; Warrior - 9.

This class melee and HP stuff has been a bit random up to now, because I failed to even think about these values for the most part. Hopefully it all makes sense - let me know.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

That should be encouraging you to stay in the darkness

I do think Estie's idea about spell failure might be the way to go here.

Well, when wielding The Pick of Erebor gives +3 Con, but also has +1 light, resulting in a net +1 to Con for a necro, when High Elf is a "good" Con race to begin with, when all together gear is giving +7 to Con and @ has maxed natural 18/00 Con, and still can't get over 600 hps, grinding away for experience levels, it seems to me the curve has gone awry. Staying in the dark actually loses this necro more hps!

Hopefully, a change to spell failure instead is the way to go, but please make it similar to the edged-weapon malus for priests; that failure rate is overcome as the priest increases in level and wisdom. A high level necro with maxed Int should find light irrelevant. Heck, even the uruk-hai fight just fine in the mid-day sun.

I'll try and give more specifics on the rest when I don't feel on tilt. Right now, I'm taking a pause from the grind.

[Nick]

All in all, I haven't found the feature branch that great. The new classes are interesting, the new spells add some flavor, but the nerfs to fighting make all of them much less viable, much more grindy, and less fun to play.

OK, I'm going to need specifics.

In the first 5 levels the nerfs to fighting result in reliance on luck for survival.

What nerfs to fighting? Rogues are weaker in the early game, but paladins are stronger, and the other existing classes have stayed the same. Monsters and objects have remained unchanged. Are you talking about attacking spells?

The necro constitution malus is pretty horrible, a 42 level High Elf with max Con and +7 Con gear, and still has less than 600 hps.

That should be encouraging you to stay in the darkness

I do think Estie's idea about spell failure might be the way to go here.

The extra shots nerf has made even the greatest bows pale in comparison to melee, even for rangers.

That was a starting position for the allocation of extra shots, to make it noticeable - I guess I achieved that. I think making it more granular is definitely a win, but maybe things that get extra shots should be getting more. I had also intended to give rangers +1 every 5 levels instead of every ten; I will now do that.

The pull-back of utility spells across virtually all the magic using classes far outweighs the reduction in number of books. A lot more inventory slots have to be used to make up for it. I find it tedious. And by the time fail rates are low enough and mana pools high enough, the "battle" spells (including shape changes) are pathetic compared to melee.

I see your point about utility spells (other people have made this point too), and I think re-introducing some is probably a good idea. Again, this was a starting position.

In fact, I think the important point here is that this entire branch is a starting position. The plan for 4.2 has expanded somewhat to include

1. Rework of classes (partly done in the current branch) and races (not started);
2. Rework of the monster list (I've thought about this a lot but only done a little in development);
3. Some work on artifacts and some other stuff (see this thread);
4. Some other miscellaneous stuff (there's been discussion of vaults and how they're selected, for example).

At the moment we're in the first part of point 1, and so there's a lot to happen before we actually have a fully balanced new version. I'm not playtesting a lot, so I don't have a very good idea of how the new stuff is working over the course of a game.

So my advice is to complain more frequently, and be specific

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Necromancers get +2 CON when on darkened square, -2 CON when on light squares.

Yeah, on angband.live I've pushed a necro to DL 98 when @ was CL 37. Have been working DL 97/98 to try and get Con. Now, at CL 40, natural Con maxed to 18/00, with equip giving +7 to Con, and the the light malus of -2, and still only 541 hps. Well inside "one-shot" danger, making any attempt at the bosses impossible. This with a High Elf, that got +1 to Con from race. I'm finding the necro is just very "grindy" at this moment and currently not that fun to play.

Edit: Now up to CL 42, and still less than 600 hps.

All in all, I haven't found the feature branch that great. The new classes are interesting, the new spells add some flavor, but the nerfs to fighting make all of them much less viable, much more grindy, and less fun to play.

In the first 5 levels the nerfs to fighting result in reliance on luck for survival.

The necro constitution malus is pretty horrible, a 42 level High Elf with max Con and +7 Con gear, and still has less than 600 hps.

The extra shots nerf has made even the greatest bows pale in comparison to melee, even for rangers.

The pull-back of utility spells across virtually all the magic using classes far outweighs the reduction in number of books. A lot more inventory slots have to be used to make up for it. I find it tedious. And by the time fail rates are low enough and mana pools high enough, the "battle" spells (including shape changes) are pathetic compared to melee.

The nerfs have gone much too far, in my opinion. For all the changes, might as well just play a warrior. The changes have pretty much pushed all the classes into melee anyway.

The beginning game is too reliant on luck, and the end-game has become a boring grind. I'm not having fun.

[Nick]

Estie's suggestion for the spell fail instead of Con change for necromancers sounds like a good idea, and I think it's worth trying. With the current setup (yes, I know I'm sort of responsible) I found myself constantly pushing for an extra +4 Con, just to be on the safe side.

Yeah, I was thinking that too.