Gear issues

[Derakon]

Do we have any useful information on the average power of equipment drops in standarts, as regards the comparison of 3.4 vs 4.1 vs feature branch? It seems to me that if there's a balance issue in standarts, we need to get that fixed first, and then worry about how to balance randart generation.

I don't think we can have that analysis unless we trust our power rating system, and it's not entirely clear we do.

[Pete Mack]

@Derakon--
Surely we have a sufficiently accurate power model to distinguish Dwarven Green DSM, say, from Caspannion? I used the former in the endgame twice in 3.4. Never, in 3.5 and later.

[jevansau]

When working on the randart generation code, it would be good to also look at the max level choices.

Particularly for object types with low average base powers, the max level should be much higher.

Conversely, for weapons and maybe body armor, the max level should tail off quicker.

I think min levels are less of an issue.

[fizzix]

For OoD items my initial inclination was to do some form of a/(mx + b) where x is the level difference and the rest are constants. It will take a bit of effort to fit it into the item generation formulation, but it shouldn't be that bad. And with stats generation we can ensure we're getting roughly the behavior we want.

[Pete Mack]

@Fizzix-- that'd work fine. It's softer near 0 than pure 1/x behavior, but asymptotically the same. That makes sense- the difference between 1 and 10 levels OOD really doesn't matter, so they should be fairly uniform.

Edit: I went and looked at your data again for speed rings. This is an excellent proxy for all OOD items. And the real problem (compared to v3.4) seems to be between dl 40 and dl 75, not very early in the game. (Of course it is hard to tell on a linear plot; semilog would be easier to compare.)

[Nick]

When working on the randart generation code, it would be good to also look at the max level choices.

Particularly for object types with low average base powers, the max level should be much higher.

Conversely, for weapons and maybe body armor, the max level should tail off quicker.

Sorry, I don't quite get this. Could you explain in some more detail?

[Derakon]

Sorry, I don't quite get this. Could you explain in some more detail?

I think the concern is that e.g. the Hard Leather Boots of Feanor, being Hard Leather Boots (a low-level item) would, if they were a randart, have a fairly restrictive cap on how deep they can appear. I don't know if that's actually the case, but certainly an item's max depth should correspond to its power alone, not to its base item.

[Pete Mack]

The other way holds too: get rid of too many weak ego types at some depth, and essentially every object becomes top notch. (Notably, big three weapons. Also: crowns.)

[Nick]

Oh, right, that makes sense.