Angband 4.2.1

[fph]

What about making them *really* speed bonuses? So if you have +10 speed and +10 movement speed, when you spend an action moving you regain energy as if your speed was +20. And similarly for shooting and attack speed.

Advantages:
* simpler and more natural for the player.
* attack/shoot speed have diminishing returns exactly like "flat" speed, because they use the same mechanic. This reduces the amount of cheese (e.g., machine-gun rangers).
* reduces the importance of flat speed bonuses in the game. Currently speed bonuses trump basically everything else.

Disadvantages:
* more complicated to code
* will require some rebalancing for items that grant +attack / shots.

[Voovus]

What about making them *really* speed bonuses?

Or maybe completely removing the usual "speed" and replacing it all by movement speed? No more worrying about M getting two moves against you, no more pillar dancing, and a huge amount of rebalancing.

[DavidMedley]

@David:
No! And again no!

Well this is more passion than I was expecting! Aren't +1 speed, +1 shots, +1 blows all essentially +10% from starting values? Should these all be properly named +0.1?

[DavidMedley]

What about making them *really* speed bonuses? So if you have +10 speed and +10 movement speed, when you spend an action moving you regain energy as if your speed was +20. And similarly for shooting and attack speed.

I agree this is better. I think I saw Wobbly championing this a while back, too. Thing is, the diminishing returns are very punishing. With those in place, specific speed bonuses will do very little when you have high general speed bonus. I don't love the artificial diminishing returns; they feel forced... a way to cover up for broader mistakes (perhaps RoS +10 is too high, for example). But now we're talking about a major overhaul that I can't even give a confident opinion upon.

For example, if you have +30 speed and put on +1 movement boots, you'd only go from 3.8x to 4.2x -- about +10% moves against your enemy instead of the current +100%! And that's setting aside the fact that general speed help gain energy and specific speeds affect spending energy.

[Pete Mack]

But speed increase is not commensurate with shots (or or movement or spellcasting.) the former gives you more energy per player turn. The latter all cut energy use by some amount. The effects are very different, except in the special case of starting from normal speed.

Well this is more passion than I was expecting! Aren't +1 speed, +1 shots, +1 blows all essentially +10% from starting values? Should these all be properly named +0.1?

[Nick]

Effects with dice:x turns are actually lasting (x-1) turns, which means trying to set an effect with dice:1 actually does nothing. This is probably the reason why some temporary effects like stun disappear immediately since I think they are supposed to last one turn.

To fix this, I think decrease_timeouts() should be called before process_pending_commands() and not after so a duration of one turn actually lasts one turn.

Edit: this seems to work fine in PWMAngband after the change.

Sadly, process_pending_commands() is only in PWMAngband, inside process_player(); in V decrease_timeouts() happens inside process_world(), which is only called once every ten turns. Moreover, the PWMA game loop is quite different, and it's not clear to me exactly where I should move decrease_timeouts() to. My current thinking is in process_player() before the main do..while loop, but only on the tenth turn - do you think this sounds plausible?

[PowerWyrm]

Sadly, process_pending_commands() is only in PWMAngband, inside process_player(); in V decrease_timeouts() happens inside process_world(), which is only called once every ten turns. Moreover, the PWMA game loop is quite different, and it's not clear to me exactly where I should move decrease_timeouts() to. My current thinking is in process_player() before the main do..while loop, but only on the tenth turn - do you think this sounds plausible?

The loop is different but the order should be roughly the same. Just move decrease_timeouts() before the code that checks for player input, since it should be where the timeouts are set.

[Sphara]

So big poison breaths can destroy wands and staves now? Didn't know that but now that I know, I don't think it's a very good change.

This makes even more monsters dubious to fight. Well, at least for me, today was the last time I'm gonna fight a Spider of Gorgoroth ever.

[Nick]

So big poison breaths can destroy wands and staves now?

Not that I'm aware of - and there's nothing in the code to indicate that would happen. What else was happening at the time?

[Sphara]

I lost some Constitution within the same attack. Got some message like "your skin itches" or something.

Gorgo spider was the only monster in the screen and it's poison breath was the only attack of the turn in question. "Your Staff of Banishment is destroyed!" was unfortunately one of the outcomes.

EDIT: oh, and I'm playing V 4.2.1. stable in angband.live. In case it matters.

[Sideways]

The code specifies occasional acid damage (including acid inventory damage) from big poison attacks. The good news is that you can protect yourself from this, all you need is acid immunity.

[Sphara]

The code specifies occasional acid damage (including acid inventory damage) from big poison attacks. The good news is that you can protect yourself from this, all you need is acid immunity.

Gotcha. Wear Thorin shield from now on, or avoid poison breathers completely.

Doesn't make sense to me at all. But thanks for the info!

[Pete Mack]

Carry !rPoison for monsters like Ungoliant, and you should never see this effect. Max damage is only 266--most characters have more than enough HP to avoid secondary effects at this level of damage.

[Sphara]

Carry !rPoison for monsters like Ungoliant, and you should never see this effect. Max damage is only 266--most characters have more than enough HP to avoid secondary effects at this level of damage.

Yeah. I'll keep this in mind if I have rPois spell or I am wearing Colluin. My late game inventory usually doesn't have space for things like potions of resist poison. I'll rather just ignore poison breathers.

[Nick]

The code specifies occasional acid damage (including acid inventory damage) from big poison attacks. The good news is that you can protect yourself from this, all you need is acid immunity.

Oh right, yes, that Clearly my memory is fading...

It's an uncommon side-effect from big poison breathers - not as much as being hit by an actual acid attack.