Crawl .20: Home of the Frog Dog

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SKULL.GIF: Jan 20, 2017

Ferrinus posted:

Crawl has really weird underlying combat formulas, but EVEN SO there are a lot of things whose absense is indefensible:

* Your "accuracy" expressed as an EV-esque integer
* A monster's actual AC, EV, and HP
* A monster's % chance to hit you
* Your % chance to hit a monster with your current weapon
* Singularity
* Yor maximum damage with your current weapon
* Your maximum damage with all your damaging spells
* The amount of damage dealt or received in any specific already-resolved action

1. This is because the actual accuracy is dependent on what kind of monster you're hitting. See #4
2. We don't show that because it leads to players trying to math out their actions. "This monster has extremely high AC" is sufficient information, IMO, as is "This monster has 80-120 HP".
3, 4. Where would this be displayed, hypothetically? xv? Do you really want to xv monsters all the time to check accuracy? For hexes and such you're already targeting the monster you want to hex, so it's easy to show the expected hit rate. Melee combat works differently.
6, 7. This seems reasonable, but not very useful because damage is affected by AC/resistances.
8. This seems reasonable -- it makes fighting in a crowd a lot less confusing. In a 1v1 you know exactly how much damage you took that turn and from who. With multiples it quickly becomes difficult to identify who's doing the most damage.

# ? Feb 7, 2017 19:33

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# ? May 14, 2024 13:46

apple: May 18, 2003; Jose in the club wearing orange suspenders

SKULL.GIF posted:

Stuff

I know this conversation is moving on pretty quick but: did you ask why Araganzar finds combat is obfuscated because you don't think it is obfuscated? Or because you want to know what he sees as obfuscated?

# ? Feb 7, 2017 19:41

Ferrinus: Jun 19, 2003; i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

SKULL.GIF posted:

1. This is because the actual accuracy is dependent on what kind of monster you're hitting. See #4

Isn't an attack roll basically a 1d(your accuracy) roll versus a 1d(monster's evasion) roll? It'd be a little in"accurate"(heh) because I know there are small modifiers on either side, but it's not like the same isn't true for AC.

quote:

2. We don't show that because it leads to players trying to math out their actions. "This monster has extremely high AC" is sufficient information, IMO, as is "This monster has 80-120 HP".

That is absurd. Crawl's a combat RPG; it's all about mathing out actions. If it wasn't, you wouldn't show us how much HP or MP we have. Brogue tells me that, at best, I can kill an ogre in 3 hits while it can kill me in 2; Crawl's failure to do so is purely a matter of artificial difficulty.

quote:

3, 4. Where would this be displayed, hypothetically? xv? Do you really want to xv monsters all the time to check accuracy? For hexes and such you're already targeting the monster you want to hex, so it's easy to show the expected hit rate. Melee combat works differently.

Since melee attacks aren't invoked and then targeted, you'd probably only see your % chance to hit a monster and its % chance to hit you. when you look at it with x->v. However, you could probably slip it into the combat log itself, maybe at the cost of words like "barely": You hit (69%) the ooze! The ooze misses (34%) you!

quote:

6, 7. This seems reasonable, but not very useful because damage is affected by AC/resistances.

If you could see AC and resistances then you could use the information to make good choices. Like okay, my firebolt does up to 30 damage, this monster has AC 30 and this other monster has AC 10, I should probably target the second one for the sake of minimizing incoming attacks as soon as possible.

That said, your ability to compare those stats to monster stats are a side benefit. The main benefit is your ability to choose between equipped weapons and other attack options. If I knew for a fact that I could deal 15 damage with the +6 weapon I'm trained in but 40 damage with the +11 randart I found even though it's governed by a different skill, I'd have a much clearer idea of what I should be wielding. If I know for a fact that my mystic blast outdamages my fireball then I have a clear idea of what I should be throwing at my enemies by default.

quote:

8. This seems reasonable -- it makes fighting in a crowd a lot less confusing. In a 1v1 you know exactly how much damage you took that turn and from who. With multiples it quickly becomes difficult to identify who's doing the most damage.

This is a thing like % hit chances that you could just slip into parentheses into the existing log. You could make room by getting rid of the rows of exclamation points. Note, though, that I put the word "dealt" in there - I want to know that I just hit an ogre for 30, or that my fireball did 11, 12, 6, 15, etc.

# ? Feb 7, 2017 19:44

LazyMaybe: Aug 18, 2013; oouagh

Chakan posted:

I guess I just don't see a reason for mummies to exist as-is because their apts are atrocious and they're often behind everyone else on the power curve in a game that's getting increasingly tight with XP.

That is the reason, though. They're supposed to be a bigger challenge to win than other species. If you want to be undead and not terrible ghouls exist(and vampires, though they are annoying).

# ? Feb 7, 2017 19:48

SKULL.GIF: Jan 20, 2017

Ferrinus, what about spells that have very high maximums but significantly lower averages (lightning comes to mind)?

apple posted:

I know this conversation is moving on pretty quick but: did you ask why Araganzar finds combat is obfuscated because you don't think it is obfuscated? Or because you want to know what he sees as obfuscated?

Just the latter.

I'm not some nefarious demon seeking to destroy this game or make it inaccessible to people. I want more people playing it!

# ? Feb 7, 2017 19:49

Ferrinus: Jun 19, 2003; i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

SKULL.GIF posted:

Ferrinus, what about spells that have very high maximums but significantly lower averages (lightning comes to mind)?

You could display the range, or display the range and average, or hell display the damage expression itself instead of or along with those things. So like Magic Dart: 1d9 (9 max), Lightning Bolt: 2d12 (24 max).

# ? Feb 7, 2017 19:51

Heithinn Grasida: Mar 28, 2005; ...must attack and fall upon them with a gallant bearing and a fearless heart, and, if possible, vanquish and destroy them, even though they have for armour the shells of a certain fish, that they say are harder than diamonds, and in place of swords wield trenchant blades of Damascus steel...

SKULL.GIF posted:

A couple thoughts after reading the last few pages:

I want to caution against getting too worked up about Crawl becoming too hard. I've noticed that SA discussion, in the years I've been reading it, has a habit of reinforcing everyone else's negative opinions about a game (or another piece of media) and everyone gets worked up and starts thinking that the game really going completely loving awful to poo poo. This isn't something I see in other spaces that discuss Crawl. A lot of these removals that people are bemoaning mattered a lot less, in the long term of Crawl, than the posts discussing them made it seem.

Over the last several versions, the general winrate has either held steady or increased. This has happened alongside a growth in the player base. Now, this could be for any number of reasons (I personally subscribe to it being a combination of the game becoming clearer and clearer, and the advice-giving community becoming collectively better) but Crawl isn't becoming any more unwelcoming to new players, I think. I personally think the current version is the most welcoming it's ever been, but I have clear bias.

Feedback is heavily limited by the message log: Crawl combat is already message-spammy, and better feedback means longer messages. On top of that, Crawl is limited by having to support the console/ASCII version which has much less visual bandwidth to convey feedback.

Many things you mentioned about obfuscation are maybe probably not going to be cleared up, because when presented with clear numbers many people have a tendency to just try to math things out instead of play the game. That said the past version, version and a half, has made huge strides towards opening up the numbers side of the game. We now show monster relative AC, EV, MR, HP averages, damage averages...

Some of these points about how severe the misses/how accurate the hits were are difficult to convey without confusing players and leading them into drawing false conclusions. What if they rolled really badly on a given attack and "overwhelmingly missed by a mile", when their average swing would have connected? Maybe we'd just show chance-to-hit instead, but that's kind of an abstract number itself, and players already get frustrated with the chance-to-succeed that we display for hexes.

My opinion on this:

First point, I agree that SA can often be negative. But, at least of the threads I typically follow, except maybe with Dark Souls 2, excessive negativity has mostly been limited to a few posters. Overly negative and unproductive posters are quickly chased out of threads. Those who are critical, but have constructive ideas, however, typically are not. I don't agree with most of the complaints in this thread, but I do think that the developers have a dogmatic tendency to unfairly classify criticism coming from certain quarters as being not valuable, however logical or well expressed it might be. The defining crawl culture is mostly on the tavern and ##crawl, and that is often at odds with what's expressed on SA. That does not mean SA is completely wrong. There are a lot of good and well thought out opinions here, even if there's also some bullshit and the intelligent posters don't always express themselves in a way that's pleasant to hear.

For the second point, this is something I think of as pure dogmatism, that for the most part I can accept purely on aesthetic grounds. Any argument that players will somehow be misled is absurd. Yes, people will be misled. That's not the issue. People don't understand probability and any game that presents unfiltered percentage chances will mislead players. Yet almost every single game gives explicit numbers, however, and players accept the numbers as par for the course and never feel angry about being given numbers in the first place, just that somehow the numbers lied. But players already feel that the numbers, or the RNG or what have you is lying to them in Crawl. Hiding information does not prevent that feeling, it exacerbates it. Crawl's accuracy and damage is overly abstruse, but not incredibly far in excess of some other games. Yet no other game I've ever played, read about or seen goes so far to hide basic gameplay information as DCSS. The only argument that makes any sense at all for hiding it comes from either simple, misguided elitism or from an adherence to a long standing aesthetic decision to not present too many numbers. The aesthetic argument makes Crawl unique, for better or for worse, and I can accept, though I doubt the games identity would suffer greatly from more clarity.

SKULL.GIF posted:

players already get frustrated with the chance-to-succeed that we display for hexes.

I have only ever seen praise for this amazing improvement to the game.

Ferrinus posted:

* Singularity

MarvinPA Delenda Est! (Seriously, please bring back Singularity, but don't destroy MarvinPA!)

# ? Feb 7, 2017 19:52

Internet Kraken: Apr 24, 2010; slightly amused

The biggest problem with mummies is that they have a lovely hexes apt. They're mummies! They should be good with curses! Makes no sense. :regd09:

# ? Feb 7, 2017 20:19

SKULL.GIF: Jan 20, 2017

Heithinn Grasida posted:

I have only ever seen praise for this amazing improvement to the game.

It's more on the side of "I have a 70% chance to hit why did I miss five times in a row!!" There are occasional complaints voiced about this and the rare "is the RNG broken?" threads. These generally get explained, but for every player that gets frustrated enough to post about it there's probably a dozen who were frustrated but didn't want to speak up / know where to complain about it and such.

I'm not saying this is a reason to not have this, though.

# ? Feb 7, 2017 20:23

Mr. Prokosch: Feb 14, 2012; Behold My Magnificence!

Internet Kraken posted:

The biggest problem with mummies is that they have a lovely hexes apt. They're mummies! They should be good with curses! Makes no sense.

This statement is true and good. Give mummies +4 to hexes!

# ? Feb 7, 2017 20:23

Darth Windu: Mar 17, 2009; by Smythe

Stop making the game harder

# ? Feb 7, 2017 20:38

Ristolaz: Sep 29, 2005; By completely blowing off my BS you have passed the first trial

SKULL.GIF posted:

It's more on the side of "I have a 70% chance to hit why did I miss five times in a row!!" There are occasional complaints voiced about this and the rare "is the RNG broken?" threads. These generally get explained, but for every player that gets frustrated enough to post about it there's probably a dozen who were frustrated but didn't want to speak up / know where to complain about it and such.

I'm not saying this is a reason to not have this, though.

If someone complains about that, you should look through their post history and do the opposite of whatever they say.

# ? Feb 7, 2017 20:39

Darth Windu: Mar 17, 2009; by Smythe

Things to bring back: high elves

Haste

Singularity

Things to add:
Dart sluts

Spectral swords get riposte

# ? Feb 7, 2017 20:39

World Famous W: May 25, 2007; BAAAAAAAAAAAA

Hey, SKULL.GIF, I've said this to every other developer that will foolishly listen to me so I may as well to you as well.

Bring back the Crown of Eternal Torment!

# ? Feb 7, 2017 20:45

Fitzy Fitz: May 14, 2005

Change frogs to Hopkins. Give tongue attack.

# ? Feb 7, 2017 20:45

Araganzar: May 24, 2003; Needs more cowbell!; Fun Shoe

PleasingFungus posted:

The game tells you monsters' AC, EV, and average HP. I get what you're saying about damage, but I don't see how monster HP is 'obfuscated' at all.

Two hill giants sitting side by side and one has 58hp and the other has 116hp. In many games you'd know there was SOMETHING different between them. In most others you'd know after you hit one for the first time. Or a few times.

SKULL.GIF posted:

Many things you mentioned about obfuscation are maybe probably not going to be cleared up, because when presented with clear numbers many people have a tendency to just try to math things out instead of play the game. That said the past version, version and a half, has made huge strides towards opening up the numbers side of the game. We now show monster relative AC, EV, MR, HP averages, damage averages...

I understand this, and thanks for the clear explanation. For example, explicit damage numbers would allow people to start "mathing out" a monsters max hp, likely AC, etc.

Probably the best example of unobfuscation/revelation was simply showing monster resists to hexes when you targeted them. That made a huge difference in the game without being a big change to the code.

# ? Feb 7, 2017 20:44

Speleothing: May 6, 2008; Spare batteries are pretty key.

Can we get rMut and Clarity as scarf egos? How many turns does it take to put a scarf on?

# ? Feb 7, 2017 20:49

Fitzy Fitz: May 14, 2005

Speleothing posted:

Can we get rMut and Clarity as scarf egos? How many turns does it take to put a scarf on?

Two if you want it to look good.

# ? Feb 7, 2017 20:49

apple: May 18, 2003; Jose in the club wearing orange suspenders

I've said this before and I'll say it again: knowing hex success rates made enchanters fun for me. Generally speaking, knowing more information will lead me to explore more possibilities instead of sticking to what I already know by allowing me to make more informed decisions. If you really want to you can already code dive and/or use fsims to get the information you want for combat but I draw the line at "looking up the wiki every now and then", something which Crawl actually has been increasingly better about since x->v on monsters is so nice.

As far as people who don't understand probability: there's an endless stream of tears in forums for games like XCOM and Darkest Dungeon due to failed 95% rolls where the 5% implies a teamwipe, it just comes with the territory of providing said information. I don't think Crawl is special in that it requires basic information to be purposely hidden for a better experience (I think hellcrawl showing damage numbers is a good example of the opposite, other changes notwithstanding) , worst case by showing this information it should put problems associated with it in the forefront, much like rMut removal and malmutate.

# ? Feb 7, 2017 20:50

Ferrinus: Jun 19, 2003; i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

apple posted:

If you really want to you can already code dive and/or use fsims to get the information you want for combat but I draw the line at "looking up the wiki every now and then", something which Crawl actually has been increasingly better about since x->v on monsters is so nice.

This is a good point. The hypothetical optimal player will just run a second game in parallel in wizmode, simulate all their character's stats, and test or compute how much damage or accuracy they'll have against a given enemy anyway, sooo

# ? Feb 7, 2017 21:19

ChickenWing: Jul 22, 2010

SKULL.GIF posted:

2. We don't show that because it leads to players trying to math out their actions. "This monster has extremely high AC" is sufficient information, IMO, as is "This monster has 80-120 HP".

I want to harp on this a little bit, because it's probably the worst reasoning for any decision ever.

No game has ever turned information obfuscation into a fun mechanic, because inevitably people do math it out, through datamining or trial and error, and it becomes just one more thing that good players take for granted and bad players have no goddamn idea about. I play Dominions 4, which the devs intentionally left out hard numbers in. The community made a manual, and the editors left out hard numbers because "it's more fun if there's some mystery.

No. gently caress you. Having to work by subjective wording isn't fun when the spell that says "burns all nearby undead to a crisp" does 1d4 damage to all skeletons within 1 square of you, and the spell that says "pelts all nearby enemies with small rocks" does 14 damage to every single unit on the battlefield.

Obviously, this is something of an extreme example, and crawl isn't *quite* as bad as all this, but it serves to reinforce my point. The people who have the experience know exactly what's going on and how to best leverage it to their advantage, while the new players are left with no frame of reference for any of the information they're trying to take in.

Roguelikes are already incredibly frontloaded with things you need to learn. Don't make it harder on the schmucks.

(this message brought to you by a certified, one-ascension-ever-and-that-was-a-GaFi, grade-A schmuck)

# ? Feb 7, 2017 21:28

Fitzy Fitz: May 14, 2005

Instead of players doing the math themselves, we just get a lot of posts asking whether they should use a +7 longsword or a +1 scimitar.

# ? Feb 7, 2017 21:35

Ferrinus: Jun 19, 2003; i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

Fitzy Fitz posted:

Instead of players doing the math themselves, we just get a lot of posts asking whether they should use a +7 longsword or a +1 scimitar.

Revealed at last! Crawl devs' design bible:

(which makes it odd there's no Singularity power in the game at the moment, really)

# ? Feb 7, 2017 21:39

GenericOverusedName: Nov 24, 2009; KUVA TEAM EPIC

I play DrTm a bunch because it means I don't have to figure out what the gently caress armour or weapon to use because I'm too loving stupid to figure it out. It's really confusing and obnoxious and I hate it so much.

# ? Feb 7, 2017 21:44

GenericOverusedName: Nov 24, 2009; KUVA TEAM EPIC

I'm probably just too stupid for roguelikes in general to be honest

Ive only ever won by going ant man and wearing and using the biggest number thing i can find. I dont know how to tell when a thing is more bad or not because I'm too loving dumb unless it's just a bigger numberer = = BETTER. But it never is. I'm too dumb to know why but it just isn't

# ? Feb 7, 2017 21:48

ChickenWing: Jul 22, 2010

GenericOverusedName posted:

I'm probably just too stupid for roguelikes in general to be honest

Ive only ever won by going ant man and wearing and using the biggest number thing i can find. I dont know how to tell when a thing is more bad or not because I'm too loving dumb unless it's just a bigger numberer = = BETTER. But it never is. I'm too dumb to know why but it just isn't

unironically same

# ? Feb 7, 2017 21:53

GenericOverusedName: Nov 24, 2009; KUVA TEAM EPIC

I'm not trying to be ironic. I don't even know why I try to play.

# ? Feb 7, 2017 21:57

ChickenWing: Jul 22, 2010

GenericOverusedName posted:

I'm not trying to be ironic. I don't even know why I try to play.

I mean it's pretty fun up until you gently caress up because you thought that your number was high enough and oops here's something to tell you exactly why it's not you dumb pleb

# ? Feb 7, 2017 21:59

Floodkiller: May 31, 2011

GenericOverusedName posted:

I'm probably just too stupid for roguelikes in general to be honest

Ive only ever won by going ant man and wearing and using the biggest number thing i can find. I dont know how to tell when a thing is more bad or not because I'm too loving dumb unless it's just a bigger numberer = = BETTER. But it never is. I'm too dumb to know why but it just isn't

To be fair, bigger number == better is what I would attribute over half of my wins to, which doesn't work out nearly as well in many of the other roguelikes/roguelites I play.

I want to write a serious post of my opinions on 'the state of Crawl in relation to difficulty', but I'll wait until I don't have to use my phone to do so.

# ? Feb 7, 2017 22:00

GenericOverusedName: Nov 24, 2009; KUVA TEAM EPIC

Randomed into a heug number sword and won the game with it. If I didn't I probably would have died from a bee or a smite bee or a yak made of bees or something.

# ? Feb 7, 2017 22:02

Johnny Joestar: Oct 21, 2010; Don't shoot him?

...
...

ChickenWing posted:

I mean it's pretty fun up until you gently caress up because you thought that your number was high enough and oops here's something to tell you exactly why it's not you dumb pleb

good news, the game will also do its best to not give you any details about why you're wrong

# ? Feb 7, 2017 22:04

ChickenWing: Jul 22, 2010

GenericOverusedName posted:

Randomed into a heug number sword and won the game with it. If I didn't I probably would have died from a bee or a smite bee or a yak made of bees or something.

skull.jpg bee-yak when

# ? Feb 7, 2017 22:07

Araganzar: May 24, 2003; Needs more cowbell!; Fun Shoe

Here are some suggestions for cool stuff to replace all the stuff that's been removed:
Animate Exoskeleton (works on ants and spiders)
Giant Spiked Demon Whip (ogres need a 1h option)
Summon Forrest (faster than a spriggan!)
Repel Measles (sick protection for abyss)
Yara's Peaceful Raveling (knits you a sweater, +1AC rc+)

# ? Feb 7, 2017 22:11

Haifisch: Nov 13, 2010; Objection! I object! That was... objectionable!; Taco Defender

Fitzy Fitz posted:

Instead of players doing the math themselves, we just get a lot of posts asking whether they should use a +7 longsword or a +1 scimitar.

That is one thing where it'd be nice to clarify in-game how good a +1 is compared to the weapon's base damage/acc. I can't even remember, I just kind of go off the intuition of having played way too drat many crawl chars.

Araganzar posted:

Here are some suggestions for cool stuff to replace all the stuff that's been removed:
Animate Exoskeleton (works on ants and spiders)
Giant Spiked Demon Whip (ogres need a 1h option)
Summon Forrest (faster than a spriggan!)
Repel Measles (sick protection for abyss)
Yara's Peaceful Raveling (knits you a sweater, +1AC rc+)

You forgot Bowl Beetle(summon an ancient and powerful insect to collide with your enemies).

# ? Feb 7, 2017 22:14

Floodkiller: May 31, 2011

Item Instruction - Monsters will inform you of the correct consumables items to use against them.

# ? Feb 7, 2017 22:24

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

Tukima's Breakdance - Distract all monsters in LoS watching your sick moves.

# ? Feb 7, 2017 22:27

cheetah7071: Oct 20, 2010; honk honk; College Slice

FR: A Cowardly Lion race that, when it first drops to 50% hp in a fight, is incapable of taking any action other than using a consumable

# ? Feb 7, 2017 22:27

Carcer: Aug 7, 2010

Hybrid Elves: A combination of all elf species. Currently displays as a second Deep Elf option for obvious reasons.

# ? Feb 7, 2017 22:28

GenericOverusedName: Nov 24, 2009; KUVA TEAM EPIC

Something to tell me where the gently caress do go when Spider 1 has a scary unique right at the stairs and all the spiders kick your rear end, and Swamp has another scary unique that will kick your rear end, and Elf is Elf and you will get 1shot by a cave elf with a bow because you're too loving stupid to know to train fighting on your mage dude because why would I want to do that, I'm a magic man. I'm not hitting things, why would i train the hitting things skill.

# ? Feb 7, 2017 22:29

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# ? May 14, 2024 13:46

cheetah7071: Oct 20, 2010; honk honk; College Slice

GenericOverusedName posted:

Something to tell me where the gently caress do go when Spider 1 has a scary unique right at the stairs and all the spiders kick your rear end, and Swamp has another scary unique that will kick your rear end, and Elf is Elf and you will get 1shot by a cave elf with a bow because you're too loving stupid to know to train fighting on your mage dude because why would I want to do that, I'm a magic man. I'm not hitting things, why would i train the hitting things skill.

Blow all your consumables killing one of the uniques. If Elf is hopeless, Depths and Vaults will be worse.

# ? Feb 7, 2017 22:30

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