Derakon's combat revamp

[Derakon]

While they arent the same for each character, they will be after equipment bonus. At least I cant recall many ladder warriors who only got 5 blows with Ringil.

That heavily depends on how available stat boosts are. In my recent v4 games, the answer has been "not very". Artifacts have been a lot less common, and without them you really can't get all that many stat boosts. My last winner didn't max (18/***) any stats until right before the endgame, when he found a melee weapon with +4 STR. If you'd handed him Ringil, he wouldn't have gotten 5 blows/round with it because his DEX would have been too low.

Of course, if artifacts become more common then that changes.

Anyway...my question was, if this differentiation between finesse and power is going to have effect throughout the game, AND str/dex affects it, but wont differ by alot come endgame, how exactly will this gap be bridged, or what kind of numbers will the extreme characters have (lets call them hobbit rogue and troll warrior) ?

This is going to be something that will require extensive playtesting, I suspect. Assuming we want to have strong class differentiation, that means that the stats that derive from class have to be differentiated, and that pretty much means initial skill and skill growth changes.

Mikko: there's two concerns I have with ditching Rings of (Accuracy/Damage) (a.k.a. Rings of Finesse / Power) in favor of the existing STR and DEX rings, and doing likewise across the entire game.
* STR and DEX impact much more than just finesse and power. It's nice to be able to have an item that has a big impact on one thing without also increasing the other -- a big Ring of Strength also significantly improves your carrying capacity, for example.
* Stats do cap. While my aforementioned winner didn't cap his stats very well, he would have if he'd worn a big Ring of Strength or Ring of Dexterity instead of a Ring of Damage. Removing the stat caps would be a big change in and of itself and I'd rather not fold that into this change if at all possible.

[Estie]

While it's true that everyone will have maxed their STR and DEX by the endgame, that doesn't mean that those maxima will be the same for each character. Assuming maximize mode is on, there's a big difference between, say, a dwarf warrior (18/150 STR, 18/100 DEX) and a hobbit paladin (18/90 STR, 18/120 DEX).

While they arent the same for each character, they will be after equipment bonus. At least I cant recall many ladder warriors who only got 5 blows with Ringil.

Anyway...my question was, if this differentiation between finesse and power is going to have effect throughout the game, AND str/dex affects it, but wont differ by alot come endgame, how exactly will this gap be bridged, or what kind of numbers will the extreme characters have (lets call them hobbit rogue and troll warrior) ?

[Mikko Lehtinen]

If the aim is to ensure that an increase in the "opposite" stat of finesse/power has an effect, the simplest solution would be to limit the spread on weapons to something like 80/20.

Even simpler would be to not have items that boost Finesse or Power, because boosts to STR and DEX are roughly the same thing. STR and DEX already do interesting things besides helping heavy/light weapons.

I'd actually prefer to not have skills for these two at all. Why not let STR and DEX to do all the work? Having finesse and power slowly increase with levels is not very interesting. If we wanted to differentiate the classes and races further, we could have bigger bonuses/penalties to STR and DEX. This approach works very well in Ey/Fay.

[Estie]

As for having power not impact criticals, I would like each stat to have a use beyond just influencing your weapon, to give you some utility from boosts to that stat even when you're using an "opposed" weapon type. It seems clear that weapon finesse would have an impact on your ability to hit enemies, and weapon power would have an impact on your ability to hurt enemies; hit chance and critical quality seemed like the natural mechanics to insert, therefore. Do you have a better suggestion?

Even more so than criticals for damage, I would avoid touching to hit chance for this purpose. To hit is way too important; basically, everyone who uses weapons for fighting (as opposed to, say, a mage who might be supposed to use spells) should reliably hit, otherwise the play becomes frustrating. So we are talking about a very minor effect of, for example, getting to hit chance from 90% to 92% or so, which wont be very game relevant or noticable.

If the aim is to ensure that an increase in the "opposite" stat of finesse/power has an effect, the simplest solution would be to limit the spread on weapons to something like 80/20.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

If you have a finesse-oriented weapon then you're better-served with a Ring of Finesse rather than a Ring of ...er, Power.

Why would you want to have Rings of Finesse and "Power" in the game if the main effects of STR and DEX are exactly these two? I'd say only rings of STR and DEX are needed.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Example weapons, off the top of my head:
Finesse: dagger, rapier, scimitar, spear
Power: club, mace, hammer, halberd, scythe
Balanced: shortsword, longsword, executioner's sword, glaive

If you need to add a weapon to fill a niche, take a look at EyAngband weapons! Eytan had to invent lots and lots of new weapon names for light/medium/heavy weapons of all power levels.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

This new combat system will make finding good weapons much more dependant on luck than before. In the current system, most any good weapon will do; after the change, you will have to find a good weapon that is suitable for your combat style.

I've clearly noticed this effect in Fay.

[Derakon]

While it's true that everyone will have maxed their STR and DEX by the endgame, that doesn't mean that those maxima will be the same for each character. Assuming maximize mode is on, there's a big difference between, say, a dwarf warrior (18/150 STR, 18/100 DEX) and a hobbit paladin (18/90 STR, 18/120 DEX). More importantly, we can strongly differentiate bonuses from equipment. Right now everyone only bothers to optimize damage on their gear -- but the equivalent, optimizing weapon power, is only really relevant if your weapon gets a good boost from weapon power. If you have a finesse-oriented weapon then you're better-served with a Ring of Finesse rather than a Ring of ...er, Power.

And of course there's the question of skill growth. While I generally don't like mechanics that heavily take level into account, generally you do gain at least 40 levels without really noticing, as you dive through the dungeon. Depending on class those levels can be biased more towards finesse or power, which will strongly differentiate different classes and influence which weapons they want to use.

Example weapons, off the top of my head:
Finesse: dagger, rapier, scimitar, spear
Power: club, mace, hammer, halberd, scythe
Balanced: shortsword, longsword, executioner's sword, glaive

As for having power not impact criticals, I would like each stat to have a use beyond just influencing your weapon, to give you some utility from boosts to that stat even when you're using an "opposed" weapon type. It seems clear that weapon finesse would have an impact on your ability to hit enemies, and weapon power would have an impact on your ability to hurt enemies; hit chance and critical quality seemed like the natural mechanics to insert, therefore. Do you have a better suggestion?

[Mikko Lehtinen]

The problem that still remains is the change from early to lategame, where, in the current system, we have characters with varying str and dex scores wheras lategame everyone has the same.

You want to give characters an inherent score of finesse and power, increasing with level and depending on class, but still list str and dex as impacting the final number.
How exactly is this going to look for a lategame toon ?

You would have to take care that at all points of the game, there are good weapon base types and artifact weapons for all character types, at least for these three: fast, balanced, and powerful.

Ey (and Fay) tries to do exactly this. It takes a lot of time and playtesting, but it's doable.

[Estie]

One thing:

I wouldnt handle the "power" branch with criticals. Critical hits are, in my perspective, something that happens rarely. For the purpose though you need something amounting to a damage increase of a factor of 6 or so, if we assume the "finesse" branch ranging from 1 to 6 blows. Just call it a damage multiplier and leave criticals free for possibly special effect (like monsters have them in stunning). Maybe this is only terminology, but there you are.

The problem that still remains is the change from early to lategame, where, in the current system, we have characters with varying str and dex scores wheras lategame everyone has the same.

You want to give characters an inherent score of finesse and power, increasing with level and depending on class, but still list str and dex as impacting the final number.
How exactly is this going to look for a lategame toon ?

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Having fractional blows or damage multipliers here is not necessarily a good thing.

Bigger jumps in power often feel better to the player, giving a sense of accomplishment.

Equipment choices may also be more interesting with bigger jumps. (This is where EyAngband combat system shines.)

Consider these cases: "I need only one point of STR or some experience levels to get double damage with this weapon... Was there a ring of STR in the magic shop?" Or: "If I lose even one point of STR, I'm not able to get the double damage. I'd better carry a lighter swap weapon."

[Derakon]

Very nicely done - I really like this proposal. It's exactly the kind of detail I hoped someone would come up with. I have views on how slays/brands ought to work in this system, but I'm happy to leave that until the code gets to a point where they need changing. How much of the coding are you planning on doing yourself, and how much would you like to outsource? I'm happy to help as soon as I've finished effects.

I don't currently have anywhere near enough experience with the V codebase to realistically tackle this on my own. However, I'll have some spare time soon what with the holidays. Sounds like it may be time for me to hop onto IRC...

Nick: my main beefs with O-combat are as I listed them. I'd really like to change how blows are calculated to a more intuitive system, since the current system pretty much necessitates a "try changing your stats and see if you get more blows" approach. And diminishing returns also introduce opacity since you can't easily tell how a given change to your equipment will affect your damage output. I'm sure that Leon put the diminishing returns in for a good reason, but there must be a way to be able to do without them.

Regarding 3.0.x combat being balanced, while I certainly agree that the game is better-balanced when pluses are harder to come by (I was singing the praises of v4 with my dwarf warrior, up until I made it to about 2500' and still hadn't found anything approaching a good weapon...), that's not really what this is addressing. This is for the common complaint that, all else being equal, a dagger is preferable to a longsword because you get more blows with it. And that's been a problem for over a decade now. I certainly remember the common advice for new players being "roll up a Half-Troll Warrior, tell the autoroller to give you an X STR and a Y DEX, go to the temple, buy, a whip, and have fun."

[Magnate]

That would be ideal, yes, and it's made easier by the fact that in v4 at least we aren't too worried about balance changes at the momentr. In other words, this could make the game too easy (or too hard), and that change could then be corrected for in other ways. It doesn't have to have no net effect on balance in itself.

Very nicely done - I really like this proposal. It's exactly the kind of detail I hoped someone would come up with. I have views on how slays/brands ought to work in this system, but I'm happy to leave that until the code gets to a point where they need changing. How much of the coding are you planning on doing yourself, and how much would you like to outsource? I'm happy to help as soon as I've finished effects.

Though if this were to end up in v4, would it stand any chance of being "promoted" to Vanilla standard? We've had the same basic rules for melee for the better part of two decades now, as best I can recall.

I think, once it is done and balanced, that it will be near impossible to port it to V without also porting the different item generation and different monsters (since all of slays/brands/blows/shots will work differently). The consensus may be that V should get all of those, but it may not. Given the number of people who currently think that combat in 3.0.x isn't broken, I wouldn't waste too much energy arguing about it at this stage. If we do it and people like it, then's the time to start the debate.

[LostTemplar]

Sometimes it's harder to balance a simple system than a more complicated one.

Have you ever try ? In some old versions, maybe 3.0.9, melee combat had no problems, or at least not so much as now. Archery was overpowered, spells were too weak and cost too much, devices were pitifull, but melee was OK. But it was broken at some point and now you try to change core rules, in hope, that it will be easyer to repair after that.

[fizzix]

Combat system by itself is fine, btw if you cannot balance this relatively simple system for 20 years, how can you balance more complicated one ?

Sometimes it's harder to balance a simple system than a more complicated one.