14:39 -!- mode/Beholder [+Zi] by Beholder 14:39 -!- karatkievich.freenode.net changed the topic on #hardfought to: Welcome to Hardfought - https://www.hardfought.org/ - public irc logs available on website ¤ Public NetHack server - ssh nethack@hardfought.org ¤ SporkHack updated to 0.6.5, includes dungeon overview patch. GruntHack to receive the same patch soon. dNetHack 3.15.1 is now live 14:39 -!- mode/#hardfought [+v Beholder] by ChanServ 14:39 jonadab: yeah, only like a d2 or d3 bonus at most. 14:39 irc logs now rotate at midnight EST 14:40 thx Tangles 14:40 So it wouldn't be really useful for the late game, but maybe it shouldn't be anyway. 14:40 Well, I mean, it's still better than nothing. 14:41 And human weapons would be defined as those which have racial counterparts but aren't themselves a racial weapon. 14:41 Yeah. 14:42 IMO, Gnomes should get racial bonus with aklys and crossbow. The former purely for flavor reasons, the latter because crossbows need some love. 14:42 Hmm, probably the best way to do this would be to add yet another object quantity to track the racial affiliation of a given object. 14:43 (There's no lore _outside of NetHack_ that connects gnomes with aklys, but among NetHack players, the connection is very firmly established.) 14:43 s/quantity/attribute/ 14:43 aosdict: Yeah, put it in objects.c, and probably only weapons and armor would need to set it to anything but 0. 14:43 Slash'EM Extended updated 14:47 Hmm, I wonder what use it'd have on armor. 14:49 aosdict: Maybe decrease the Ev penalty? Or on a shield, improve the bonus? 14:50 One minor concern with this is that it kind of favors elves, whose racial equipment is better in the first place. But that can probably be balanced by making them vulnerable to iron. 14:51 Oh man, having elven players unable to handle iron would be _nasty._ 14:51 (Iron damage vs elves would presumably not be as OP as silver against silver-sensitives. But it would be the same idea on a smaller scale.) 14:51 aosdict: Not entirely unable to _handle_ iron, I think. That would make things like keys and rings problematic. 14:52 But iron armor should be a problem for them, probably, and iron weapons definitely. 14:52 (Iron weapons used against them, in particular.) 14:52 What about things like magical helms? Those are kind of important. 14:52 Hmm, iron jewelry is highly arguable, because flavor-wise it really should be a problem for them, but balance-wise that is kind of mean.) 14:52 Oh, true. 14:53 Helm of brilliance/telepathy. 14:53 Not that elven leather helms are bad either. 14:53 "Your itches." and you take 1 damage or something from the act of wearing it? 14:53 My instinct is, gameplay is more important than flavor, let elves wear iron jewelry with no significant penalty. But it's arguable. 14:54 aosdict: Oh, just when you put it on in the first place, no further penalty ongoing? 14:54 That isn't so bad. 14:54 maybe even d2-1 damage 14:54 dnethack's iron/silver/curse itchiness causes a reduction in regeneration 14:54 Weapons are a different story. 14:54 Weapons that monsters are using against you should do extra damage every time they hit, clearly, if you're sensitive to the material. 14:54 Like silver damage only with smaller numbers. 14:55 I kind of like this because it makes elves more different from humans. I mean, the list of which monsters are dangerous is even slightly different. 14:56 Gnomes, with their iron crossbow bolts, you know. 14:56 And orcs with their elven arrows 14:56 uh 14:56 Iron arrows. 14:56 Yes. 14:56 *iron arrows 14:56 Iron-tipped, anyway. 14:58 Rangers would probably have a bit of difficulty due to the rarity of elven arrows 14:58 Elven rangers, you mean. 14:58 Possibly. 14:59 But that might depend on what changes if any are made to ammo breakage rates. 14:59 In 3.4.3, as a ranger, I always end up throwing daggers until at least the quest, because there aren't enough arrows even if you collect all the orcish ones and everything. 15:00 In Fourk, I suspect an elven ranger can probably use nothing but elven arrows if desired, until you get to the point where levitation is necessary. 15:00 I'm planning some daggerstorm nerfs, even to rangers. 15:01 My favorite daggerstorm nerf is to just severely restrict which roles can get skill in dagger. 15:01 The only role with very strong flavor reasons for dagger storming is Rogue. 15:01 And to a lesser extent Ranger. 15:01 They should probably be able to multishot 3, but not 4. 15:01 In 3.4.3, Tourists are heavily reliant on it early, because all their darts break. But changes to projectile breakage rates can compensate for that. 15:02 Also, in 3.4.3, Wizards tend to need to dagger storm, but that's because Pw regen is too XL-reliant. 15:03 -!- mode/Beholder [+Zi] by Beholder 15:03 -!- tolkien.freenode.net changed the topic on #hardfought to: Welcome to Hardfought - https://www.hardfought.org/ - public irc logs available on website ¤ Public NetHack server - ssh nethack@hardfought.org ¤ SporkHack updated to 0.6.5, includes dungeon overview patch. GruntHack to receive the same patch soon. dNetHack 3.15.1 is now live 15:03 -!- mode/#hardfought [+v Beholder] by ChanServ 15:03 !netsplit 15:03 I asked K2 for that yesterday 15:04 * jonadab zaps a wand of death at Takauji. 15:05 -!- captain42 has quit [Ping timeout: 240 seconds] 15:12 -!- captain42 has joined #hardfought 15:21 Hmm, I am now realizing that I don't have anything in the to-hit system about spell hit chances. 15:23 Defensive bonuses shouldn't really change, but it doesn't seem like that much applies to the attacker. 15:23 Currently it's just spell skill + dexterity, and neither of those makes all that much sense to me. 15:23 Maybe shields shouldn't protect against spells unless the spell is a ray/cone (magic missile, firebolt, cone of cold)? 15:24 Well, beam attacks always hit, right? 15:24 in vanilla? 15:24 I don't think so. 15:24 Oh, wait, you said beam. 15:24 I was thinking rays. 15:24 er, force bolt is a constant chance 15:24 Beams might always hit? Not certain. 15:25 Rays are frequently dodged, especially by high-level monsters like Rodney. 15:25 But I'm less sure about beams. 15:25 Yes. 15:26 "Other beam and non-directional spells will always hit, but may be resisted." 15:26 other = everything but force bolt 15:28 Still, since the message "The spell misses the monster" is in vanilla, that means that other beams could miss. 15:28 If I wanted them to. 15:29 I can justify Dex being a factor for the attacker, for aim or whatever. But spell skill seems weird 15:29 I think spell skill on the attacker makes sense. 15:29 Is it like your skill with the spell affects your ability to direct it? 15:30 Sure, why woudln't it? 15:30 If you're an expert at casting magic missile, it makes sense you'd have an easier time hitting things with it. 15:31 Oh, wait, that's a ray. 15:31 I keep thinking rays. 15:31 think polymorph instead 15:31 Force bolt... well, again, if you're better at it, you're better at it. 15:31 Oh, polymorph. Well, polymorph is a much higher-level spell, maybe that should also matter. 15:31 Yeah force bolt is weird. 15:32 I think spell level shouldn't affect accuracy. If you can summon up the focus and energy to cast it, that's enough. 15:32 What's really weird is that cone of cold is a ray, not a cone.l 15:33 it could be renamed as "coldball" 15:33 :P 15:33 fireball isn't a ray either, it's just a fireball that flies like a ray until it hits something and blows up 15:39 [slex] dolores (Cam Ang Fem Cha), 8576 points, T:4809, killed by a bec de corbin 15:42 [nd] jonathanhanes (Val Dwa Fem Law) polymorphed her first object, on T:23277 15:46 jonadab: Oh, ray/beam spells should definitely have the same distance penalty that gets applied to ranged attacks. 15:55 [nd] Grasshopper (Bar Hum Fem Neu) entered the Planes, on T:69685 15:56 [nd] Grasshopper (Bar Hum Fem Neu) killed the Wizard of Yendor, on T:69685 15:56 go Grasshopper! 15:58 thanks K2 :D 15:58 hothraxxa: when you play slex again, play the camperstriker class, it would be your favorite :) 15:58 good lucky Grasshopper 15:58 may the luck of yourself be with you 15:59 lol 16:00 thanks lolilol 16:02 the loling loli 16:02 when chuck norris plays nethack, he asks Grasshopper for advice 16:05 lol 16:25 hmm shield skill is not balanced very well against enchantment 16:25 enchantment overshadows it to the point where expert skill is worth less than half of +5 enchantment 16:25 [nd] jonathanhanes (Val Dwa Fem Law) wished for "uncursed magic marker", on T:23795 16:26 so you need to ask yourself 16:26 would chuck norris bother with a shield? i think not 16:26 he would in THIS combat system 16:26 -!- raisse has quit [Ping timeout: 255 seconds] 16:27 the WoY is chuck norris's bastard son 16:32 aosdict: The way Fourk does shield skill, it multiplies with enchantment. 16:32 At unskilled, you get half the value out of enchantment that you would get in vanilla. 16:32 At basic, 100% 16:33 At skilled, 150%, and at expert double. 16:33 Or something like that. 16:33 Hmm, that may be a bit too overpowered for shield users 16:33 (This is in a system where what you get is AC, because I haven't split Arm from Ev yet.) 16:33 Well, if that's too OP, tweak the numbers. 16:34 The whole shtick of shield users is to trade less attacking power to be hit less, but not to not be hit ever. 16:34 Well, yes, but suppose enchantment is +7, and the user is expert, which makes that effectively +14 to the Ev bonus. 16:35 What does that _mean_ in terms of actually making you harder to hit? 16:35 [nd] jonathanhanes (Val Dwa Fem Law) genocided mind flayer, on T:23945 16:35 Well, compared to a non-shield-user, it's a +14 bonus, which is quite a lot. 16:35 For that matter, maybe a shield bonus of +14 is only worth +3 to EV, because you divide by four. 16:36 I was considering making the standard deviation of the random number increase gradually as the game goes on as well. 16:36 Because the player will get bigger and bigger bonuses. 16:36 So the game gets less predictable as turncount increases? That's... an interesting mechanic. 16:37 Hmm, yeah when you put it that way it doesn't sound good 16:37 No, actually, that might be a good direction. 16:37 It'll need balancing. 16:37 But it creates a sort of clock. 16:37 Where you don't want to let the game drag out _too_ long, because it makes the game harder. 16:38 But the standard deviation of 2 right now is balanced for early game. It's going to be quite hard to keep the end game balanced for the same standard deviation. 16:38 I didn't mean it increases with turncount, but with level difficulty or something 16:38 Taken to extremes, you'd make the game a race where everone needs to finish by turn 20k, and that would be bad. But if you make extinctionist hard to do, for instance, I don't think that's a problem. 16:38 Ah, difficulty level. That's a different thing. 16:40 Another interesting thing is that the level bonus quickly eclipses any speed bonus to defense the player might have 16:41 Speed bonus is at most 2/3, for very fast speed. Level bonus gets there at XL2 and keeps increasing. 16:44 Gaining levels makes you more evasive? 16:45 That seems... odd. 16:46 It's there to counter monsters' base to-hit coming from their own level, which of course increases as the game goes on 16:47 There aren't really that many ways to deliberately increase your evasiveness in this system. Shields and divine protection, and speed a little. 16:47 Maybe it should be a Dex check instead? 16:48 Though some roles start out with great Dex, so that's not good. 16:49 dex should affect evasiveness at least in part 16:50 I'm hesitant to have it affect evasiveness since it already adds to your to-hit, and I don't want to effectively make it twice as good for players starting with Dx:18 and twice as bad for Dx:7 players. 16:50 "Burrrrp! Burrrrp! Burrrrp! Burrrrp! Burrrrp!" 16:51 purple rain 16:53 "Death seems more experienced." 16:53 jonadab: I don't particularly like XL influencing to-hit but I can't really think of anything else to counter what should be increasing to-hit bonuses on the monsters' side. 16:53 Wow, I never would have thought of death as a leaning experience but there you go 16:53 learning 16:53 o/ 16:54 Or maybe damage reduction can handle it completely, and monsters shouldn't get any level bonuses either. 16:54 That goblin from DL1 can still hit you just as well, but he's sure not going to do more than 1 point of damage 16:55 [slex] dolores (Cam Ang Fem Cha), 16365 points, T:4708, killed by persian zipper boots 16:55 [4k] k2 (Sam Hum Mal Law), 6219 points, T:2966, killed by a piranha 16:55 gdamn 16:55 piranha's got some love in fourk 16:56 [nd] jonathanhanes (Val Dwa Fem Law) killed Lord Surtur, on T:25045 16:56 [nd] jonathanhanes (Val Dwa Fem Law) acquired the Bell of Opening, on T:25051 16:58 K2: Oh, was it finally enough? 16:58 I've buffed them at least twice, because they were boring. 16:58 Are they "interesting" now? 16:58 K2: and David Carradine (before he was killed, Bill) 17:00 [nd] Grasshopper (Bar Hum Fem Neu) killed Death, on T:69982 17:05 -!- noty has joined #hardfought 17:09 [nd] Grasshopper (Bar Hum Fem Neu) killed Death, on T:70003 17:14 [nd] Grasshopper (Bar Hum Fem Neu), 3619011 points, T:70020, ascended https://www.hardfought.org/userdata/G/Grasshopper/nhdev/dumplog/1501745896.nhdev.txt 17:15 ... and so it was written in the Book of Grasshopper... 17:15 congratulations, you lucky fellow! :) 17:15 thanks Amy 17:15 err, LarienTelrunya 17:15 :D 17:16 haha, both are the same :D 17:16 indeed, my little joke to share :D 17:17 !streak Grasshopper 17:17 Grasshopper: Grasshopper Max[nd]: 6 (2017-03-17 - 2017-05-14). Current[nd]: 2 (since 2017-07-26). 17:18 and a grunt one too [2] 17:21 wooo congrats! 17:21 congrats! 17:22 jonadab: yeah they can bite 17:24 K2: They could bite before, I think? 17:24 But it was for trivial damage. 17:25 Also, I think they were generated in smaller groups in vanilla. 17:25 i was dbl-teamed 17:25 Yeah, vanilla piranha damage was 2d6. 17:25 @4k?piranha 17:25 and by 'they can bite' i mean they can _really_ bite now 17:25 piranha (;) | Lvl: 5 | Diff: 0 | Spd: 12 | Res: none | Confers: nothing | MR: 0 | Generates: special | AC: 4 | Attacks: 2d6 bite physical, 2d6 bite physical | Alignment: 0 | Flags: genocidable, carnivore, swims, amphibious, oviparous, tracks scents 17:25 @v?piranha 17:25 Ah, they just get an extra attack each. 17:25 piranha (;) | Lvl: 5 | Diff: 6 | Spd: 12 | Res: none | Confers: nothing | MR: 0 | Generates: special | AC: 4 | Attacks: 2d6 bite physical | Alignment: 0 | Flags: genocidable, carnivore, swims, amphibious, oviparous 17:26 So literally twice as dangerous. 17:26 for my lvl 5 samurai, 2 pirahna's was 2 too many 17:26 Ah. 17:26 i rolled in thinking oh hey no big deal 17:26 Yeah, that's pretty early. Shallow water? 17:26 yes 17:26 dlvl 6 i think 17:27 Yeah. 17:27 they're fine 17:27 just wasnt expecting it 17:27 They can occur basically anywhere there's water. 17:28 So with two piranhas, they could theoretically hit you for at most 48 damage per round, combined. 17:28 Though that would be one heck of a dice roll. 17:28 Also, that's assuming no damage reduction. 17:28 Wait, did I say 48? I think only 24. 17:29 No, 48 is right. 17:29 It's _2_ d6, each attack, 2 attacks per fish, 2 fish. 17:29 So yeah, 4-48 damage per round. 17:30 ;) 17:30 Considering the general lore on piranhas (which some folks believe is actually true IRL) is that a few of them can strip all the flesh off a person in a few seconds, it doesn't seem THAT unreasonable ;-) 17:30 i'd like to see a sharknado please 17:31 Tell Amy. 17:31 either naturally occuring or as a lvl 7 spell 17:31 She'll totally do it. 17:31 an arch-lichnado 17:31 That would be evil. 17:35 ok, i need to mow before the rain comes. my yard is already starting to resemble a jungle 17:35 bbl 17:36 jonadab: I'm interested to hear your thoughts on whether levels should factor into to-hit at all, since you made me think of that 17:59 aosdict: Hmm, not sure now. My gut instict suggests XL may be the wrong metric; but you're absolutely right that, as monster difficulty progresses, we do NOT want it to devolve into monsters always/never hit you and/or you always/never hit monsters after mid-game. 18:02 Part of the problem is that your divine protection level tends to go from 0 to 9 in a relatively short amount of time, because about the time you get to the point where you can buy your first protection level, you are then powerful enough to go more or less anywhere in the dungeon, collect a ton of gold, and buy all the protection you want, within a few thousand turns. 18:02 I'm referring to this from both sides, though. Monsters don't get any better at hitting you by virtue of being high level too. 18:03 This is partly because protection prices scale with your level (which flattens out at a certian point) but NOT with the amount of protection you've already bought. 18:03 aosdict: Right, it should be symetric, as much as possible. 18:03 Yup, the plan is for protection to be the most expensive option and scale up with your current protection 18:04 Though the player has some options monsters don't have, like increasing skill level. 18:04 Though it only goes up three times. 18:04 So you could probably loot Ludios and get all of it at once, but not much short of that will get it there. 18:04 The to-hit bonuses aren't linear, either. 18:04 for skill level 18:04 It's tempting to suggest that unskilled->basic->skilled->expert is too short a progression tree to accommodate enough numbers to scale from early game to late game. 18:05 go full SLEX and add Master and Grand Master? 18:05 Maaaybe. Fourk adds a couple of cases of that (e.g., Barbarians can get Master in axe.) 18:05 Never go full SLEX. 18:06 Going _full_ slex on this issue would mean everyone can get grand master in anything regardless of role or race, which is clearly wrong. 18:06 actually, SLEX only gives Expert in everything 18:06 Ah, ok. 18:06 Master/Grand Master is pretty rare and restricted 18:07 Still, giving everyone every skill is not the direction to go. 18:07 But increasing the number of skill levels might be a good idea. 18:07 Agreed. Adding higher levels has merit 18:07 You mean opening up Master and Grand Master to other things, or adding more levels entirely? 18:07 Say, Unskilled->Basic->Competent->Skilled->Advanced->Expert->Master->GrandMaster 18:08 Most roles would not be able to get to GrandMaster in hardly anything, of course. 18:08 Hmm. I hate to think of untangling the many, many special cases of skill handling in the code. 18:08 Actually, probably most roles shouldn't get Grand Master in _anything_. 18:08 But this is design, so that shouldn't matter. 18:08 And Master only in the stuff they're really supposed to be good at. 18:09 LIke Samurai could get Master in katana, maybe. 18:09 Honestly, I don't think the code on this is that bad. 18:09 Wouldn't that just bring back the problem of there being a clear optimal solution for everything? 18:09 every role * 18:09 Nowhere near as tricky as, say, allowing parallel branches. 18:09 aosdict: Oh, hmm. 18:10 I was thinking in terms of each role being genuinely different. 18:10 But yes, perhaps each role should have more than one sane option, as well. 18:11 Give Samurai the ability to get Master in, say, Shuriken, Bow, Katana (which skill tsurugis also use), and _possibly_ two-weapon combat. 18:11 Oh, and throw in polearm, because why not. 18:11 What if skills required you to be at some experience level? For example, you can't get Katana to Expert until you hit XP level 14. 18:11 And then let them still get Expert in a few more things, etc. 18:11 -!- Grasshopper has quit [Ping timeout: 260 seconds] 18:11 NeroOneTrueKing: That has potential merit. Hmm. 18:12 It shouldn't be special-cased on a per-skill basis, though. 18:12 Actually, skill points could sort of help with this. 18:12 it would be a general limitation on advancing all skills, I think. 18:12 jonadab: But if you increase the number of Expert skills, you open yourself up to artifact balance problems 18:12 "meh, Expert saber's good enough, I'll use Grayswandir" 18:13 Say it takes one skill point to get to Basic, one more to get to Competent, two more to Skilled, three more to Advanced, four more to Expert, six more to Master, six more past that to GrandMaster. You'd need to be XL22 at least to get GrandMaster in anything, even if you advanced no other skills. 18:13 (These numbers could be adjusted, and probably need to be.) 18:14 aosdict: True. IMO, Grayswandir is OP and needs a nerf, but that's a separate issue. 18:19 one more thing about levels: if monster level doesn't factor into to-hit, how do monsters meet the player's increasing bonuses? 18:19 Also, YANI: most artifacts should have a _negative_ to-hit bonus, i.e., they're harder to use than the equivalent base weapon. 18:19 So you want to use the base weapon to train up, then switch to the artifact when your skill is higher. 18:19 aosdict: But the question of whether expert is good enough should also depend on things. 18:19 I mean, say you want to use two weapons. There's a to-hit penalty when you do that... 18:19 And we want the to-hit formula to be such that this is potentially relevant when deciding whether to do so or not, even in the mid-to-late game. 18:19 Maybe there's a trade-off, if I invest more skill points in it, I can get to where I can two-weapon without missing too much. 18:19 -!- captain42 has quit [Ping timeout: 246 seconds] 18:19 -!- LarienTelrunya has quit [Quit: The giant aangel wields a wooden geta!] 18:19 If I want to save skill points for spell casting and/or not gain too many levels past 14, maybe I need to satisfy myself with one weapon. 18:19 Decisions, decisions. 18:20 -!- captain42 has joined #hardfought 18:20 intrinsic accuracy as a stat? 18:21 Greatly reduced monster level contribution to to-hit? 18:21 feel like it would correlate to monster level pretty strongly 18:21 The formula is currently mlvl / 3. 18:22 But that means the Wizard will get +10, which will basically always hit anyone not wearing a shield with maxed protection, under current mechanics 18:22 And similar end game monsters 18:23 mlvl/9? 18:23 They get a little more accurate, but not a ton. 18:24 aosdict: Hmm. That's also a good question. 18:24 Yeah, so maybe player level should not count for defense, but some fraction of monster level should? 18:24 What would we expect a Wizard's evasion to be like at level 1? How about at level 20? 18:24 FIQ is thinking of maybe implementing monster weapon skills (similar to monster wand skill), not sure if vanilla will want to go that far. 18:24 hi 18:24 Hello FIQ, Welcome to #hardfought 18:24 yeah 18:24 Oh, YANI for this combat system: ring of increase evasiveness. Chargeable. 18:25 but only to +2 or so, max. 18:25 aosdict: Or make it only increase your Ev by +1d(enchantment) on any given hit. 18:25 Monster-level-to-accuracy should be indexed to the expected evasiveness improvement of the worst evading players 18:26 NeroOneTrueKing: well, with current mechanics, assuming he didn't get much protection or decide to wear a shield, he's only a bit more evasive than he started out 18:27 A late game wizard, who bought all six protection points and maxed Luck, should still only expect 6 evasiveness on average. 18:27 Plus a bit for speed. 18:29 so then a monster should only get ~6 points of accuracy by late game on account of their level 18:30 Now, his AC could be very high by this point, and he will heavily reduce damage that hits at +1 or +2 above the threshold. 18:30 maybe a bit more to punish a wizard for having 'very bad' evasion 18:30 ah yes, the partial hits. 18:31 and remember, setting it to 6 when you expect it to be 6 is if you want things to hit the wizard 50% of the time, which may or may not be true 18:34 I havent't settled on a damage reduction formula yet, but I'm thinking something like damage = damage * ((amount monster hit by) / (1 + AC/7)) 18:34 with some guardrails for no more than 100% damage, always at least 1 point of damage, etc 18:44 Early game AC would be bad: around zero-ish, right? 18:44 Late game AC for a heavy-armor character would be around, say, 40? 18:44 Late game Arm typically would be maybe +5 DSM, +5 gloves, +5 boots, +5 gauntlets, +5 shirt, +5 helm, +5 cloak. 18:44 Some players will stop at +4 on things, or not have a shirt. 18:44 Others will get +7 on some items. 18:44 Or eat rings of Ev, or something. 18:44 But that'll be typical. 18:44 Looks like 40 to 50 AC typically 18:44 Sounds about right. 18:44 Remember that divine protection is Ev now. 18:44 now that reduces damage, by at most, 7/8ths 18:44 Which seems much saner than how current nethack AC damage reduction works 18:44 However, on the low-evasion-end, a +8 hit will completely ignore armor. How common would that be? 18:45 0+5 shirt + 9+5 DSM + 1+5 gloves + 1+5 boots + 1+5 helm + 0+5 cloak adds to 42, assuming you don't go for higher-AC non-magical things like iron shoes. 18:46 NeroOneTrueKing: Not sure. 18:46 edit: a +7 hit will completely ignore armor 18:46 And have we even discussed MaxHP and HP regen yet? 18:46 Those become relevant here too. 18:47 A lucky high-damage-roll high-accuracy-roll could ruin a high-armor low-evasion character 18:47 Well, it could hit them for a lot of HP. 18:48 Monster attack damage vs player HP is something we also have to keep balanced. 18:48 spike damage is painful 18:48 True. 18:49 Actually, though, I'm thinking spikiness will be worse for a high-EV character? 18:49 Because things will mostly not hit, and then bam? 18:49 NeroOneTrueKing: well there's no second roll for damage. 18:49 aosdict: I mean a mumak's 4d12 physical damage 18:49 ah 18:50 Wait, is this assuming a gausian distribution with a stdev of 2? 18:50 A high-EV character doesn't sacrifice much AC to get their EV 18:50 that's what is currently programmed. I have no loyalty to it. 18:50 They can still wear boots/gloves/helm/shirt with little/no penalty 18:51 NeroOneTrueKing: there is an EV penalty for wearing armor without appropriate armor skill 18:51 * Chris_ANG goes to find a z-score calculator 18:51 That raises the question of whether DSM should have no EV penalty because lightweight, or high EV penalty because stiff and dragon-ey, or what. 18:51 but for the most part, Basic skill should cover non-body armor. 18:52 A high-EV character might have 29-34 AC, say 18:52 then they get at best a 4/5 damage reduction 18:53 but the chance of a +5 required to ignore their damage reduction is much much lower 18:54 Interesting. 18:54 Does this mean that EV is better than damage reduction, under the current formula? 18:54 ...so if a 0 hits, the odds of getting 7 for a +7 hit are 0.0233%? 18:54 jonadab: Most possibly. 18:54 note that that AC/7 is arbitrary. 18:55 We probably want Ev and Arm to be _about_ equally good, ideally, but with tradeoffs that make choosing between them meaningful. 18:55 it could be AC/10 or AC/5 or AC/3.434829 for all I care, whatever seems appropriate 18:55 Like, maybe with one the damage you take is spikier but lower on average, something like that. 18:55 What was the highest EV score you were figuring on? 18:56 Unless we nerf temples, late-game characters will normally have _at least_ 9 Ev, maybe more? 18:56 Chris_ANG: Depends on the exact mechanics. But 1d(Luck/3) is at most 4, 2.5 average, 1d(protection) is at most 6, 3.5 average, plus Expert +5 shield users. 18:57 jonadab: temples need a nerf anyway, because of the power spike they already represent 18:57 aosdict: True. 18:57 Although, making the price scale with how many points of protection you've already bought should smooth the spike. 18:57 Make it a curve. 18:57 But yes, I can see the argument for nerfing them. 18:58 That was the nerf I had in mind, yes, increasing cost for more points 18:58 Were you also going to move the cap, though? You said 1d(protection) is at most 6, currently it could be up to 9 even if the player doesn't keep going when he starts getting selfless generosity. 18:59 Granted, escalating the price makes it harder to get the higher levels. 18:59 Chris_ANG: a Expert shield user wielding a +5 large shield is the best possible shield bonus but I keep finding issues with the shield bonus formula and tweaking it 19:00 jonadab: Yes, cap is now 6. It's either that or cut the effect of protection by a fraction. 19:00 Since 9, or 1d9, is too much. 19:01 And I'd like to discourage grinding and searching Gehennom for more gold for more protection. 19:01 aosdict: cap at 6 seems ok to me. 19:01 With these numbers, if a character without a shield gets hit 50% of the time, the same character with the best shield would get hit 0.6% of the time. 19:02 Hmm. That seems like maybe it's a little too strong? 19:02 Chris_ANG: yes, the discrepancy between powerful shield users and non-shield users needs to be reduced, without making shields non-competitive for those who can't get Expert. 19:02 Maybe adjust the numbers slightly. 19:03 We don't want to replace "everyone must #twoweapon" with "everyone must expert shield". 19:04 Shield should be _good_, but not mandatory. 19:04 The balancing I've done has tended towards smaller quantities, shields should probably be cut by more than half 19:05 Might be easier at this point to multiply all the quantities, including standard deviation, so that we don't have to bandy about 1/2 and 1/3 all the time 19:05 *multiply them in a _sane_ way 19:06 Also, the standard deviation of 1d6 is 1.7, meaning that max protection introduces the same variance as the roll to hit. 19:06 *variance->variability 19:06 also, *roughly* the same, 1.7 vs 2 19:09 Also, I didn't mention this before, but one reason I like 1dluck as a fix for the impact of luck in the to-hit roll is that it makes luck *unreliable* as well as nerfing it overal. 19:10 So being in the range where you're really depending on luck to hit an enemy is inherently uncomfortable. Yeah, you may hit on average, but if your luck doesn't come through for you this time you might be in big trouble. 19:12 You have a point there with the protection roll, maybe the only random quantity for defense should be the luck roll. 19:12 And protection, like so many other things at this point, is just cut to a fraction of its actual value, but doesn't vary. 19:13 Consider, if you're fractionating all these things, using a rational (rather than integer) formula so that the fractional bits can add up. 19:13 I think that's a sign that the stdev of your gausian is too low :P 19:15 Also, the important thing about a to-hit system is the hit/miss percentage, 19:16 And the closer you get to either 0% or 100%, the more resistant the formula should be to getting much closer to that extreme. 19:16 so a range of acceptable hit/miss percentages should probably be decided on in advance, and the system designed to deliver those values. 19:17 Getting to the point where monsters miss you 95% of the time should be about twice as hard as 90%. 19:17 Chris_ANG: yeah, and that's easy enough to do for the early game, but when you're trying to balance the late game with all its variety of choices, it can be hard :) 19:18 The late game is harder to balance, yes. 19:18 Say I'm playing a barbarian with a 2-handed weapon and heavy armor. I have neglected EV and so due to the gaussian distribution, a couple points of EV from protection won't help me much. My AC needs to do the work. Therefore, 'solid hits' that pierce/ignore AC will utterly slaughter my barbarian. 19:18 That's because NetHack is such a high-headroom game. Which is good, it's _supposed_ to be high-headroom. 19:18 but yeah, that makes balancing the late game tricky. 19:19 jonadab: I actually disagree. At least for nethack as it is now, I think a 100% hit rate (from mid-game onwards) should be the default. 19:19 Chris_ANG: That's how it is in 3.x 19:19 But that removes some trade-offs. 19:19 NeroOneTrueKing: hmm, maybe a lower fraction of AC reduces damage unconditionally? 19:19 Chris_ANG was there a recent update to dnethack? as in the last 24 hrs? 19:20 Chris_ANG: I don't think 100% hit rate should be easy to get. Perhaps _possible_, but hard. 19:20 K2: Yes, though there may be more soonish. 19:20 ok 19:20 jonadab: Yes. I think the problem in 3.x is that it's damn near impossible to force it *bellow* 100% 19:20 aosdict: I was thinking 1d(how well that thing hit me) for the numerator in your previous formula, but guaranteed damage reduction is also a good idea 19:21 let me know please when all the soonish ones are ready, i'll update 19:21 Twoweaponers in particular trade accuracy for damage, and should not expect more than a 90% hit rate. 19:21 Yes to reduced hitrate for twoweapon 19:23 What fighting style should offer the best hit-rate? Two-handed weapon, which doesn't have much else going for it? 19:23 what if you're a high lvl samurai thats expert in both long sword and twoweaponing with +7 weapons 19:23 Also, I think there should be fairly common monsters with elevated AC against which the default character has a noticable miss rate. 19:23 K2: this is what we would like to see, not what exists already 19:24 instead of nerfing twoweaponing, i'd adjust monster AC to be more in line with how powerful they are (or arent) 19:24 aosdict: yeah i know 19:24 my 2 cents 19:24 Chris_ANG: Yes. Though it'd be evasiveness under this system, and is the reason why monster evasiveness isn't tied to level 19:24 But the default character attacking the default monster should have a very high hit rate. 100% doesn't seem out of the question. 19:25 I think 95% or so is fairly good, especially with flavored misses. 19:26 But possibly some other high % would be better. For example, perhaps players would be resistant to dropping bellow 100% hit for any reason, and so wouldn't ever use two-weapon since it meant accepting a 90% or 80% hit rate. 19:28 In which case yeah, perhaps 95% or so is a much better baseline 19:28 ... 19:28 To clarify my assumptions (to my self as well), 19:29 there is a question of how risky any given action in the game should be, 19:30 and therefore with what degree of confidence a player can choose that action in a tight spot. 19:31 I'm assuming that a basic attack should be a low-risk action, 19:31 it is (very to 100%) probable that the attack does damage, 19:32 and (very to 100%) probable that the damage delt is equal to a sizeable fraction of the target's HP maximum. 19:32 Eh, I think the fact that the default action in 3.x is "Whack it again" is a problem. 19:33 That doesn't help keep the game interesting. 19:33 ...that reminds me of another thing I've been wanting to bring up... 19:33 To continue, for a moment though, 19:33 A related question is raised by the action "let a monster attack me" 19:34 True. 19:34 I'm also assuming that this should be relatively low risk, ie, 19:34 it is quite probable that the monster will hit me if I let it try, 19:34 and it is quite probable that it will deal damage equal to a smallish percentage of my HP maximum. 19:35 Which I can then regenerate quickly. 19:35 So all player characters are tanks? 19:35 Agreed, though I would classify that as a balance flaw in nethack's HP regen formula. 19:35 (I mean, _up to a point_, yes...) 19:35 Late game, certainly. 19:35 I think 19:35 oops 19:36 I think I would actually set about trying to fix HP regen before combat. 19:36 That might be a good idea, yes. 19:36 To go back to that thing I've been wanting to bring up: 19:37 It is possible that nethack simply spawns too many monsters. 19:37 Chris_ANG: I think it spawns too many over time, not enough when levels are generated. 19:37 Ah, I was going to ask where you came down on that. 19:38 You noted it had a problem at some point in the past, but didn't explain further. 19:38 More-or-less by definition, the more monsters a player has to fight at once, the less attention each monster can demand. 19:40 (I think "at once" can also mean "in quick succession". 19:41 Certainly, you would not want to need to radically re-tool your character's equipment loadout (weapon, shield, rings, etc) between each monster encounter in nethack, 19:42 there are simply too many monster encounters, you'd be staring at your inventory for days total). 19:43 Consider also, if you are fighting one or two monsters at a time and they each have little quirks that make them unique, that's probably good, 19:43 but if you're fighting monsters 10 or 20 and a time and each one is doing something slightly different, 19:44 that's a cacophony, no way you can keep up. 19:44 In vanilla, 19:45 this contributes to the fact that many properties are manditory, which contributes to the fact that all ascension kits are the same. 19:45 You can't really skip reflection and just resolve to be extra careful around dragons or something, 19:45 there are too many monsters encountered during the game, 19:46 you *will* eventually encounter a black dragon or something in less-than-favorable circumstances and that'll be it. 19:50 (tieing this back to the risk discussion above, 19:50 Does this mean summoners harm the game? 19:50 If they can summon any random monster, or anything from a large list, as opposed to just certain things? 19:51 the number of monsters encountered more-or-less demands that the average monster encounter be a relatively low-risk event) 19:51 jonadab: That's a great point, 19:52 and actually makes me think of 4e D&D's solo/minion system... which I will elaborate on in a minute, since prob that reference is not very helpfull >_< 19:52 First take on summoners directly: 19:52 It is possible that the summon nasties list is designed wrongly. 19:53 I believe it is designed to bring in monsters with 'unique' quirks, cockatrices etc. 19:53 Perhaps it should be designed instead to bring in relatively dangerous but *predictable* monsters. 19:53 Just anything dangerous in general, I think; but in NetHack, that often means unique quirks, yes. 19:54 Their presence would then make the battle more dangerous, but wouldn't make it disolve into a cacophony of special properties. 19:54 I was thinking, what if any given summoner could only summon certain things. Say, Liches can summon undead only. 19:54 What if nalfeshnees can only summon demons? 19:54 To elaborate on the solo/minion thing, 19:54 Titans can summon, I don't know, giants and minotaurs. 19:55 solos are boss monsters, they have lots of flashy abilities and are meant to last a long time. 19:55 Ah, I think I might see roughly where this is going. 19:55 Bosses have mooks? 19:55 probably, yup :) 19:55 Yup 19:55 Skipping to the end, then: 19:56 the player has a finite amount of attention, 19:56 so perhaps complicated monsters like spellcasters should be found in the company of simple monsters. 19:56 Can you clarify what constitutes a "simple" monster? 19:56 Relatively easy to kill, or just with no special quirks? 19:57 Or thematically related to the boss and all similar for any given boss. 19:57 In 4e D&D, easy to kill, no special quirks, low damage, low *variance* in damage output. 19:57 (Where "boss" here doesn't have to mean vlad; anything that can summon probably qualifies.) 19:57 Also thematically related to the boss, and all similar for any given boss, true :) 19:58 "easy to kill, no special quirks, low damage, low variance in damage" sounds like popcorn monsters to me. 19:58 Which is probably taking things too far. 19:58 In nethack yeah, I'd back off on some of those. 19:58 sounds like a lich who can only summon kobold and gnome zombies 19:58 Maybe a "pick two" kinda thing. 19:58 Out of curiousity, have either of you ever gotten far enough in Brogue to see an ogre shaman? 19:59 never played Brogue 19:59 No :( 19:59 Yeah, I'm thinking maybe a lich that can only summon undead. 19:59 (non-lich undead, because no summonsplosions.) 19:59 I've made semi-serious attempts at playing ADOM and DCSS, but not Brogue. 19:59 Also, 19:59 I suck and ADOM and DCSS. 19:59 *suck at 20:00 Yeah, I suck at DCSS and shelved ADOM because I decided other games were higher priority for the time being. 20:00 I'm trying to learn Angband at some point. 20:00 But my _main_ roguelike poison at the moment is FIQHack. 20:00 If I get pretty far in FIQHack, I'll probably move on to Un at some point. 20:01 Or maybe Spork. 20:01 More likely Un than Spork, I think, though. 20:02 But if you haven't every played Brogue, I do highly recommend it. It's very different from NetHack, and good for very different reasons. 20:02 Among other things, it's a relatively low-headroom game. 20:02 And has way fewer monster/item interactions than NetHack. 20:02 But its balance is very finely tuned. 20:02 And its level design is _great_. 20:02 Also, that gas-spreading mechanic. 20:03 [dnh] Tarmunora (Ana Dro Fem Cha) consulted the oracle for the first time, on T:3440 20:03 Yeah, I've been meaning to check it out at some point. 20:05 ... 20:05 keying off the popcorn monster thing, 20:06 IMO, it's much harder than NetHack to be good enough to _win_, but the learning curve is shaped right, so it's easier to notice when you're getting better at the game, because it means you get deeper more often. 20:06 if the character encounters a lot of monsters, 20:08 then any given monster encounter needs to be a relatively low risk event (or the whole game devolves into a crapshoot), 20:08 Ah, good point. 20:08 which means that most monsters just get eaten up like popcorn, leaving no lasting impression on the game, 20:08 which begs the question "why, then, is the encounter rate so high?" 20:09 Yeah. 20:09 The encounter rate's high because the player should be competent enough to defeat the average monster they come across; 20:09 I think I like the idea of turning down the rate of monster generation over time, and making specific summoners summon from specific, narrow lists. 20:10 But, players are occasionally tested when a monster has an attack or a quirk they aren't prepared for 20:10 Well, you don't want the encounter rate to be crazy low like the DCSS early game. THAT is just BORING. And then one of the encounters randomly one-shots you, when the same monster usually can't scratch the paint on your shield. 20:11 Wandering around for five minutes between monsters does NOT make individual fights more exciting, IMO. 20:11 It just makes the whole game boring. 20:11 (The wandering around feeling is exacerbated by the design of the early levels in DCSS, which I don't really care for.) 20:12 With certain mechanics like flanking, even popcorn monsters can be dangerous. 20:12 I am given to understand that if you get far enough into it, DCSS gets actually interesting stuff at some point. 20:12 (In all that discussion about late-game evasiveness earlier I forgot about flanking and how the player's going to be flanked six ways to Sunday in places like Astral) 20:12 BUt I've never gotten far enough to _see_ any of it. 20:13 aosdict: By flanking, do you mean just the existing getting-surrounded mechanic, or are you talking about something more like Wesnoth-style backstab? 20:13 I've gotten far enought to be murdered by a wandering unique. 20:13 I think every time I've played XD 20:14 Chris_ANG: I usually get killed by a random kobold or goblin or something. Something I've previously killed 30 of with no trouble, in 1-2 hits without taking damage. 20:14 And then one of them randomly kills me in one hit. 20:14 jonadab: is there any actual numeric mechanic that activates in vanilla when you get surrounded? 20:14 If so I never heard of it. 20:14 aosdict: Only as an emergent property. 20:14 They all get to hit you on the same turn (if they're at least speed 12.) 20:14 And you only get to attack usually one of them (maybe 2 if you are fast or better.) 20:15 Yeah, so I mean flanking as a quantity that lowers your evasiveness when you're partially or completely surrounded. 20:15 Ah. 20:15 That makes sense. 20:15 or at least, counts as a penalty against you 20:15 That's different from the Wesnoth backstab I was thinking of (which doubles damage specifically if there's something directly on the other side of you from the attacker), but could work well. 20:15 jonadab: This actually reminds me of a discussion from way back when, about YANIs to make the gehennom more interesting. 20:16 Chris_ANG: widemazes? 20:16 it would incentivize the player to fight in corridors and doorways, as opposed to standing around surrounded by weak monsters and 1 strong monster 20:16 Ah, true. 20:16 3.6 has widemazes now, BTW. 20:17 Still doesn't have aiscav Gehennom, though. 20:17 One possible solution would be to buff '&'s to be individually interesting enemies, then cut off monster generation in gehennom, such that the objective of that phase of the game becomes safely clearing out enough &s that it becomes safe to do the ascension run. 20:17 That's an interesting thought. 20:18 Generate the &s when the level generates, and that's it? 20:18 Yep 20:19 What about other Gehennomic monsters like L and green slimes? 20:19 Same deal, presumably: populate the level when it's generated. 20:19 Summoners would still be able to summon whatever it is they summon. 20:19 But once you _clear_ a level, it's clear (unless you bring something there with you on your return)? 20:20 That leaves the question of what Rodney's summon list should be. 20:20 He clearly needs to be a special case. 20:22 A question related to this YANI, though, 20:22 so this would have to be an absolutely insane amount of monsters compared to what it is now 20:23 which I think has been mentioned a couple of times, 20:23 but to frame it this time: 20:23 aosdict: Think in terms of maybe the number of monsters you would typically encounter while exploring a level for the first time. Which is way more than the number that generate on it, because currently most monster generation is post-level-gen. 20:23 jonadab: lots action on strategy on the wiki now. Started with your recent things. 20:24 Strategy? Like, play strategy? 20:24 design 20:24 Oh, design, right. 20:24 Yeah. 20:24 A game can have both tactics and strategy. 20:24 yeah that 20:24 sorry s/strategy/design/ 20:24 Actually, I think aosdict is _at least_ as responsible for that as I am. 20:24 aosdict: yeah thanks much. 20:24 why thank you :) 20:25 jonadab: I mean I think your long dissertation was the original ported article 20:25 I think the overal strategies that a player can employ in nethack are fairly clear, 20:25 dtype: It was near the beginning, certainly. 20:25 aosdict: yeah, lots of wiki activity, and thanks. Phol is a champ. ;) 20:25 (aosdict: yes, thanks ;) ) 20:25 Also, Gus Van. But that's another topic. 20:25 do we know who Gus Van is? 20:25 If he's on IRC, I'm not aware of it? 20:25 But, what is nethack's TACTICAL game? 20:26 "stand in a corredor."? 20:26 Chris_ANG: and don't die 20:26 Chris_ANG: That's where you do stuff like throw rocks at a blue jelly because you don't have cold res, fight in a corridor to avoid getting surrounded, etc. 20:26 Yes. 20:27 Diagonal movement to maximize your value on your turns. 20:27 Chris_ANG: I can't think of many good reasons you would want to not stand in a corridor given the chance 20:27 aosdict: Corridors being dark is a biggie. 20:27 "kill sessile monsters at range (even the weakest ranged attack will do ;) ), and stand in corridors."? 20:27 aosdict: if it directly contributes to not dying 20:28 Chris_ANG: Even something like "which of these two monsters that are attacking me do I want to kill first" counts as tactics. 20:28 I occasionally get killed by wands or breaths in a corredor because I can't dodge. 20:28 Yeah, the straightness is another thing about corridors that can be a downside. 20:28 Although, that can also be good against groups of monsters that have ranged attacks. 20:28 Orcs are dumb :-) 20:29 Straight corridors are good for fast movement, don't take them away 20:29 Sure. 20:29 I'm not saying straight corridors aren't good level design. 20:29 I'm saying they have tactically important properties that are different from rooms. 20:30 (...totally unrelated, but YANI: monsters get bonus AC against attacks launched by members of the same 'team' (hostile monsters, tame monsters, etc)) 20:30 Choosing where you want to be for a given encounter is a tactical thing. 20:30 Chris_ANG: AC, or EV? 20:30 aosdict: sweet hell I hadn't read your longer design doc. Will tonight,. 20:30 dtype: uh, which one is that? 20:31 EV, in this system. AC in everything else :P 20:31 https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/User:Phol_ende_wodan/Balance_issues 20:31 Oh. Well, it's a bit less coherent than the combat system one 20:31 "throw rocks at sessile monsters; stand in corredors or lit rooms (depending on tactical situation)."? 20:32 liking the new https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Category:Design 20:33 (Obviously, the point I'm making is that nethack doesn't have much of a tactical game going on. 20:34 THose are just specific examples. There IS more tactical stuff in NetHack than that. But yes, it's not chess. 20:34 Certainly (and the reason this ties in with the above), not enough to make, say, 10 different types of &s all different from each-other in interesting ways and all interesting to fight) 20:36 Part of this may be personal preference, 20:38 but I've noticed that I enjoy employing the Binder's various 1-use-per-25-turns powers; the Drow Ana's binder power, melee attack, and spells; and the lightsaber Ana's various lightsaber forms, 20:38 and have been noticing that the vanilla roles don't have the same sort of turn-by-turn tactical game going on. 20:43 I also recently had a fun run-in as an orc barbarian with an out-of-depth winged gargoyle, which took 1/4 damage from my axe and I therefore had to evade until I finally found an usuable blunt weapon. 20:45 if that sort of thing were common, it might promote golf bag strategy 20:46 Yes. There is the real question of how common I want that to be :-/ 20:47 Valkyrie, for example, I push towards using the golf-bag approach by handing out three elemental artifacts over the course of the game. 20:47 If it can be varied up enough to the point where there's just no way to prepare for all of it, then either players will not bother with golf-bag strategy... or go all out with it 20:49 Barbarians... they get a 2x-vs-everything first gift. Up untill now they've been able to use that vs anything. 20:50 Realistically, they still can, I think. The 1/4 damage stuff is not common enough to require it. 20:50 Neither common nor strong enough. 20:51 In the early game... having all three damage types helps. 20:52 But if it hadn't have been for that gargoyle, I don't think I'd've needed it :/ 20:53 you rarely if ever have enough skill points early to justify putting points in all damage types 20:54 You gain levels pretty quick, though. 20:54 A bigger problem I've noticed is that there's no guarantee that the RNG will oblidge you will weapons for all three types. 20:55 still not quick enough imo. even then in my experience the points run out quickly especially if you pour into non-weapon skills. 20:56 Blunt especially, I had an aklys from a Gnome but it was so lousy I wasn't able to kill the gargoyle before it DPRed me into the 'run away now' zone 20:56 I think ideally, wizards are playing a different tactical game than physical fighters are, 20:56 also by the time you get "luxury" points for other weapons whatever you're wielding should be more than strong enough against all enemies. 20:57 and can just ignore the physical damage types in favor of the elemental damage types. 20:58 Yeah, but it would be nice if the choice between going to expert on your primary weapon vs skilled on your secondary weapon was interesting. 21:01 Also, 21:02 YANI: Barbarians (and Valks, and Knights, etc?) can see the enchantment of any weapon they wield 21:02 *can see->learn 21:02 isn't that what slash'em's weapon practice technique is? 21:03 (slash'em's looks weird because of the double apostrophe) 21:03 IIRC in Dynahack (and maybe more) you'll eventually learn the enchantment of your weapon by using it 21:04 I think so. I think it should be as easy as trying on armor, though. 21:04 Brogue tells you the enchantment of a weapon when you kill 20 enemies with it. (That doesn't sound like very many, but in Brogue, it's quite a few.)\ 21:05 (To the point where it's usually not practical to identify more than 2 weapons that way in a given game of Brogue.) 21:05 (after all, you don't have to let a gnome punch you in the nose to figure out if your hat is magic) 21:06 Hm, possible broader point: 21:07 nethack chooses to show the player their AC, and chooses to hide from the player their to-hit modifier. 21:08 Part of that is because the to-hit modifier is scattered in several different places depending on how you're trying to hit 21:10 True, but there's also no reason why that wasn't centralized, other than it was fine to leave it scattered since it's never used anywhere else, one such use would be reporting to the player. 21:11 That's not entirely true 21:11 Your to-hit for making a ranged attack is different from your to-hit with your wielded weapon is different from your to-hit if you decide to cast magic missile. 21:12 The split I'm thinking of is ranged combat (inc thrown) vs melee 21:12 hm, making it easy to identify weapon enchantment would probably increase the variety of used weapon types 21:12 And for making a ranged attack in particular, the game doesn't know whether you're going to fire an arrow from your quiver or throw one of your +7 darts 21:13 There's no particular reason why it couldn't display a to-hit for the wielded melee weapon and the quivered ranged weapon, though. 21:13 I guess and a to-hit for ray spells on the spellcasting menu, or something. 21:14 First particular reason that comes to mind is that botl real estate is at a premium :P 21:15 Options deals with that nicely :P 21:16 Also, why does it always show gold? How often is *that* something you need to monitor on a turn-by-turn basis? 21:17 When you're killing a leprechaun hall 21:18 I don't even think there's an option for turning it off? 21:18 Yeah I don't remember ever hearing of a showgold option 21:19 It also constantly displays your ability scores. Damage to them is a bit more dire than losing some gold, 21:20 but they also only rarely need to be monitored on a turn-by-turn basis. 21:22 I guess that would be YANI: Include options to hide more entries on the status line. Gold total, Experience level, Dungeon level, and ability scores are all examples of things that are constantly displayed, but which rarely need to be constantly monitored. 21:26 what is the intertia control spell? 21:29 ? 21:29 Oh, slex 21:29 isn't it a spell in other variants as well? 21:29 Not a clue :) 21:30 when you ask if something in slex is in other variants, the answer is usually going to be no 21:30 Not unless I'm really spacing out. 21:30 well I can assume some spells are the same 21:30 even the protection racket is mostly the same 21:30 were you really spacing out when you implemented the stiletto shoes or whatever those were? 21:30 just a few changes here and there 21:31 aosdict: No, that was on purpose. 21:32 actually, how many existing mechanics does slex unconditionally modify from vanilla? I'm under the impression it simply adds a lot of THINGS - new spells, traps, objects, monsters. 21:32 It rounded out the "impractical armor" item set, and the improvised weapon angle is interesting. 21:33 Or at least, potentially interesting, I'm not sure that it has a lot of practical use. 21:33 unconditionally modify? 21:34 Identify 21:34 Altars 21:34 Good example 21:34 Unicorn horns 21:34 those are all altered slightly 21:34 alters can go away after things are dropped on (I don't think this is a thing in vanilla) 21:35 they freaking disappear on you! No other variant does this! 21:35 ...as far as I'm aware. 21:35 they don't like identifying too many items 21:35 makes Necromancer even more OP 21:35 than he normall is 21:35 "no other variant does this" is one of the many slex taglines 21:35 loli: wait, what is the name of that spell? 21:36 "intertia control" 21:36 the ingane description doesn't really help me much 21:36 No recoil when levitating??? 21:36 it's used for other spells 21:36 oddly enough 21:36 * Tarmunora__ shrugs 21:36 This spell allows you to choose any of your other known spells, which will be inertia 21:36 controlled for a while. That way you can automatically cast it while doing other 21:36 It's not in the online repo??? 21:36 things. Don't move the spell around in your spellcasting menu while inertia control is 21:36 in effect though, or it will end prematurely!--More-- 21:37 a spell for spell maintenance? 21:37 I'm not sure 21:38 98% failure rate to cast atm 21:38 loli: Where are you playing, hardfought? 21:38 yup 21:38 they are defining terms interms of itself 21:38 Does hardfought use the slex github repo, or some other repo? 21:38 it is using slex 2.0.2 21:38 the update amy released earlier today 21:39 Oh, there we go 21:40 ...no~th~ing? 21:41 hehe 21:41 -!- irina|log has quit [Ping timeout: 255 seconds] 21:41 Collusion! 21:41 such a weird ability 21:41 "Inertia control allows you to automatically cast a spell every turn for a while" 21:42 huh 21:42 but it appears the critical function is never cast. 21:42 *never called, that is 21:42 So it appears to actually do nothing. 21:42 really?! 21:42 that's strange 21:42 that is the case → tell amy about it 21:43 ¬case -> ask amy what it does 21:44 Can't remember how to spell her username. 21:44 LarienTelrunya? 21:44 LarienTelrunya 21:44 !tell LarienTelrunya yo how does "inertia control" work, Chris_ANG states that it might do nothing at all! Thanks~ 21:44 Will do, loli! 21:44 there we go 21:45 !tell LarienTelrunya It appears you forgot to call castinertiaspell() anywhere, so it seems "inertia control" doesn't work, yeah. 21:45 Will do, Chris_ANG! 21:45 so what do you do if you don't cast a spell every turn, Chris_ANG ? 21:45 like I don't understand what that even means in this context 21:46 @le?chaos horde 21:46 chaos horde (q) | Lvl: 25 | Diff: 31 | Spd: 15 | Res: none | Confers: nothing | MR: 10 | Generates: special | AC: 5 | Attacks: 2d8 weapon physical, 2d2 touch shock, 2d2 touch cold, 2d2 touch fire | Alignment: 0 | Flags: genocidable, herbivore, infravisible 21:46 dlvl 3 folks 21:47 loli: Nothing. It looks like it should function by asking you to pick a spell, 21:47 which it will then automatically cast for you once a turn or something. 21:47 ahh 21:47 But it doesn't actually do anything. 21:47 so it's like a familiar 21:47 or w/e 21:51 Maybe it's supposed to work like spell maintenance? 21:51 that's what I said 21:52 I don't know what spell maintenance is 21:55 -!- irina|log has joined #hardfought 21:55 -!- irina|log is now known as Guest57177 21:56 -!- remirol is now known as lorimer 21:59 [slex] dolores (Occ Red Fem Cha), 3171 points, T:1986, killed by a monster (giant yellow frog), while dragging an iron ball 22:00 bullock monsters 22:04 this class is weird legendary for all weapon skills 22:07 jonadab: a side-effect of making monster generation rate higher at level generation and lesser afterward is that the dungeon might feel more like a strict level-by-level challenge 22:07 you clear one floor, feast on the corpses of your enemies, and wait to recover full health before beginning the next floor 22:15 slex also changes pickup 22:15 picking up items does not take any turns! 22:45 asodict: Personally, I'd see that as a downside 22:48 I'm neutral on the issue for now, just wanted to suggest that might happen 22:49 loli: spell maintenance is for keeping some spells active that would normally time out, like "protection", "detect monsters", "haste self", etc. 22:49 thank you oh6 22:50 at least, that's what it means in FIQhack, I think 22:50 The only time I'd really like the player to feel 'railroaded' into rushing through would be on the ascention run 23:09 !tell K2 Ok, dnethack is ready to be updated :) 23:09 Will do, Chris_ANG! 23:09 \o/ 23:09 K2: Message from Chris_ANG at 2017-08-15 23:09 EDT: Ok, dnethack is ready to be updated :) 23:09 hello K2 23:10 hi loli 23:11 [4k] k2 (Sam Hum Mal Law), 6477 points, T:1520, killed by a water moccasin 23:19 dNetHack updated 23:19 Thanks :_ 23:19 *:) 23:20 :)