Bug or feature? (twoweapon issue)

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

My Knight never used his lance until late in the game, when he started
twoweaponing with it and Grayswandir. However, even after clearing 15
levels of Gehennom, I was never able to raise its skill beyond Basic. I
gained several levels during that time and didn't use them on anything
else, so I'm quite sure it's not a skill slot shortage. And I absolutely
had the 80 hits that should have qualified me for Skilled. Are the hits
being registered as "twoweapon hits" rather than "lance hits," where the
two are mutually exclusive? If so, does this happen for every weapon or
is something peculiar to lances? And, of course, is this intentional or
not?

--Todd

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Todd Pytel wrote:
> My Knight never used his lance until late in the game, when he started
> twoweaponing with it and Grayswandir. However, even after clearing 15
> levels of Gehennom, I was never able to raise its skill beyond Basic. I
> gained several levels during that time and didn't use them on anything
> else, so I'm quite sure it's not a skill slot shortage. And I absolutely
> had the 80 hits that should have qualified me for Skilled. Are the hits
> being registered as "twoweapon hits" rather than "lance hits," where the
> two are mutually exclusive? If so, does this happen for every weapon or
> is something peculiar to lances? And, of course, is this intentional or
> not?
>
> --Todd

As I understand it, when you wield two weapons at once, each successful
hit counts only twowards your twoweapon skill for advancement purposes.
If you are skilled in twoweaponing and only basic in your primary
wielded weapon, your chance of hitting is penalized more than if your
primary weapon's skill were skilled or higher.

Since you were using the lance as your secondary wield, you would only
have been missing out on damage bonuses due to the basic skill, and I
believe your chance of jousting would have been penalized too. This is
all intentional.

When I'm considering using twoweaponing, I always work on the weapons
I'm going to use as solo wields before committing to the twoweaponing so
that I can maximise the bonuses, because of course twoweaponing carries
a sizable penalty to chances of hitting.

-Ken

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Todd Pytel wrote:
> My Knight never used his lance until late in the game, when he started
> twoweaponing with it and Grayswandir. However, even after clearing 15
> levels of Gehennom, I was never able to raise its skill beyond Basic. I
> gained several levels during that time and didn't use them on anything
> else, so I'm quite sure it's not a skill slot shortage. And I absolutely
> had the 80 hits that should have qualified me for Skilled. Are the hits
> being registered as "twoweapon hits" rather than "lance hits," where the
> two are mutually exclusive? If so, does this happen for every weapon or
> is something peculiar to lances? And, of course, is this intentional or
> not?
>
> --Todd

I think (but am not certain) that when two-weaponing, all hits go to
your two-weapon tally, and not to your actual weapon skill. I see this
as a bug, and hope it is fixed in the next version, but others may
disagree

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Quoting Todd Pytel <tppytel@nospam.org>:
[twoweapon skill checks]
>Hum. OK, I guess. I admit it doesn't make much sense to me either
>"realistically" or balance-wise, but it's really not a big deal.

You've been twoweaponing LANCES and you're invoking the argument from
realism?
--
David Damerell <damerell@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Kill the tomato!
Today is Oneiros, Presuary.

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

David Damerell wrote:
> Quoting Todd Pytel <tppytel@nospam.org>:
> [twoweapon skill checks]
> >Hum. OK, I guess. I admit it doesn't make much sense to me either
> >"realistically" or balance-wise, but it's really not a big deal.
>
> You've been twoweaponing LANCES and you're invoking the argument from
> realism?

Well, at least he is only two weaponing GS on the main hand, and a
lance on the off hand. I'm using *two* lances *laugh* I just had to
do it.

-K

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Boudewijn Waijers wrote:

>Todd Pytel wrote:
>
>
>
>>Are the hits being registered as "twoweapon hits" rather
>>than "lance hits,"
>>
>>
>
>Yes.
>
>
>
>>where the two are mutually exclusive?
>>
>>
>
>Yes.
>
>
>
>>If so, does this happen for every weapon
>>
>>
>
>Yes.
>
>
>
>>or is something peculiar to lances?
>>
>>
>
>No.
>
>
>
>>And, of course, is this intentional or not?
>>
>>
>
>Yes.
>
>
>
Should we call you the "Monosyllable Mage" or "The Binary Poster"?

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

In news:<h7b*nFFRq@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk>, David Damerell
<damerell@chiark.greenend.org.uk> says...
> Quoting Todd Pytel <tppytel@nospam.org>:
> [twoweapon skill checks]
> >Hum. OK, I guess. I admit it doesn't make much sense to me either
> >"realistically" or balance-wise, but it's really not a big deal.
> You've been twoweaponing LANCES and you're invoking the argument from
> realism?

The exact same thought struck me.

/Kristoffer

--
This cookie has a scrap of paper inside. It reads:
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Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Gary Olson wrote:
> Boudewijn Waijers wrote:
>> Todd Pytel wrote:

>>> Are the hits being registered as "twoweapon hits" rather
>>> than "lance hits,"
>> Yes.

>>> where the two are mutually exclusive?
>> Yes.

>>> If so, does this happen for every weapon
>> Yes.

>>> or is something peculiar to lances?
>> No.

>>> And, of course, is this intentional or not?
>> Yes.

> Should we call you the "Monosyllable Mage" or "The Binary Poster"?
0.5

--
Boudewijn.

There are 10 types of people in the world:
those who understand binary, and those who don't.

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

> Boudewijn.
>
> There are 10 types of people in the world:
> those who understand binary, and those who don't.

Lol! (though it took me a couple of seconds to get it)

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Marky Mark wrote:
<snip>
> You mean not being able to wield a +5 shield of reflection or +7 elven
> shield isnt penalty enough? (as well as the to hit and damage penalties)

I agree with the sentiment with David (and many others) that it's
nowhere near enough to offset the huge damage increase.

I think what could be done is to introduce more interesting shields and
shield effects.

-K

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Quoting Todd Pytel <tppytel@nospam.org>:
>David Damerell <damerell@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>>The to-hit penalties are completely meaningless in the middle and late
>>game
>This seems to me to be a big part of the problem, not just for the
>two-weapon stuff but for other things as well. Has anyone considered
>redesigning the to-hit system?

Yes.

Briefly, I proposed the following;

Cut back certain bonuses, in particular the luck and weapon enchantment
ones.

Another part of the problem is that monster ACs do not increase with
player power. In general give monsters an AC bonus equal to their hit
dice, fudging some early and middle game monster ACs so they don't become
tougher in the parts of the game where hitting is actually hard.

Give monsters with negative AC player-style damage reduction, _but_ with
the player's surplus to-hit negating damage reduction.

That way, you'll tend to miss sometimes much later into the game, and even
when you no longer miss, more to-hit is always valuable.

This couples in with the twoweapon proposal; roll to-hit for both weapons,
attack only with the one that scores best; attack with both if the primary
weapon rolls a 20 [1] at Basic #2w skill, 18+ at Skilled, 17+ at Expert.
This makes twoweaponing useful for hitting more, not for doing cruel
brutal damage. Exercise the weapon skills as well as twoweaponing -
because the skill is now most valuable early on. Once you have a godlike
artifact, you don't want to two-weapon because tickling people with your
crysknife is distracting you from belting them with Grayswandir.
Conversely, a Samurai should use the two swords right out the gate. This
is good because they are movie samurai not real ones. Enormously reduce
the to-hit and damage penalties that apply now per-weapon; at Skilled
two-weapon, each single attack should be just as good as a one-handed
attack.

All artifact weapons get a flat +1d4 damage when they don't get any other
bonus. Bingo, no more junk artifacts.

Shields; add a "shield" skill practiced by being hit with a shield worn.
At unskilled shield, all shields are AC 1; at skilled, the value is
doubled; at expert, tripled. Add a 3 AC "tower shield" with no special
properties.

Two-handed weapons increase skill and strength bonuses to damage by 50% at
Basic skill and 100% at Skilled or Expert.

Cap player hitpoints at some rough multiple of experience level.

Late-game monsters that just hit should hit hard, like minotaurs.
Recognise the way that player damage reduction makes one big attack better
than several small ones.

This gives a situation where two-weaponing is great for hitting, and is a
great boon to someone who can't get a decent artifact but can double what
they do get with a crysknife or similar - and unlike the current
situation, the incentive to use it is much higher if you can get a decent
skill. For an Expert, the damage output is still quite respectable.

Shields create a very powerful defensive option for people with the skill,
at the cost of spellcasting ease - and any special shield ability if a
tower shield is in use. This becomes more valuable with capped hitpoints
and hard-hitting monsters.

Two-handed weapons do cruel brutal damage - not as much as #twoweapon does
now, but still pretty hefty. This is not unbalanced given the lack of a
shield's defense boost and the cursed two-hander problem, and it restores
the Tsurugi to its rightful place as the best weapon in the game (c'mon,
it's a two-hander that Rodney can steal and cut you in half with).

This proposal tends to mean that your available skills will inform whether
you use twoweapon, a shield, or a twohander - at the moment from a pure
efficiency POV anyone who can twoweapon should.

I am open to suggestions for a bonus for characters (presumably
spellcasters) who fight with one open hand.

[1] IIRC NetHack TH rolls might be backwards, but never mind.
--
David Damerell <damerell@chiark.greenend.org.uk> flcl?
Today is Epithumia, Presuary - a weekend.

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Todd Pytel <tppytel@nospam.org> wrote in
news:20050620215932.6d6400b2.tppytel@nospam.org:

> @Chuck - It's version 3.4.1. As mentioned above, it doesn't offend my
> gaming sensibilities or anything. It just seems a little odd.
>
>
> Thanks guys...
>
> --Todd
>
Some people get non-release versions, so just covering all bases there.

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Sebastian Hungerecker <sepp00@web.de> writes:

> David Damerell wrote:
> > Shields; add a "shield" skill practiced by being hit with a shield worn.
>
> Wouldn't it make more sense to practice the skill by being missed
> instead of being hit? If the opponent manages to hit you, you didn't use
> your shield successfully, did you?

It should apply when you are missed because of the shield, rather than
every time you are hit (or missed). A successful shield block is the
shield equivalent of a successful blow with your weapon.

--
David Grabiner, grabiner@alumni.princeton.edu, http://remarque.org/~grabiner
Baseball labor negotiations FAQ: http://remarque.org/~grabiner/laborfaq.html
Shop at the Mobius Strip Mall: Always on the same side of the street!
Klein Glassworks, Torus Coffee and Donuts, Projective Airlines, etc.

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

rlb@hoekstra-uitgeverij.nl (Richard Bos) writes:

> grabiner@alumni.princeton.edu (David J. Grabiner) wrote:
>
> > Sebastian Hungerecker <sepp00@web.de> writes:
> >
> > > David Damerell wrote:
> > > > Shields; add a "shield" skill practiced by being hit with a shield worn.
> > >
> > > Wouldn't it make more sense to practice the skill by being missed
> > > instead of being hit? If the opponent manages to hit you, you didn't use
> > > your shield successfully, did you?
> >
> > It should apply when you are missed because of the shield, rather than
> > every time you are hit (or missed). A successful shield block is the
> > shield equivalent of a successful blow with your weapon.
>
> And there's the rub. Hits and misses are based (among other factors) on
> your total AC. Individual pieces of armour are not counted. The
> difference between a +2 shield and +1 boots on the one hand, and a +1
> shield and +2 boots on the other, is nihil.

But it would be very easy to check. If you have AC 0 and a +2 small
shield, you would have AC 3 without the shield. A blow which would hit
AC 3 but misses AC 0 is considered to have been blocked by your shield.

--
David Grabiner, grabiner@alumni.princeton.edu, http://remarque.org/~grabiner
Baseball labor negotiations FAQ: http://remarque.org/~grabiner/laborfaq.html
Shop at the Mobius Strip Mall: Always on the same side of the street!
Klein Glassworks, Torus Coffee and Donuts, Projective Airlines, etc.

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

In news:<MPG.1d29490c7f298965989700@130.133.1.4>, Kristoffer Björkman
<kristoffer.bjorkman@frontnet.org> says...
> In news:<42be7093.2693890@news.xs4all.nl>, Richard Bos <rlb@hoekstra-
> uitgeverij.nl> says...
> > grabiner@alumni.princeton.edu (David J. Grabiner) wrote:
> > > Sebastian Hungerecker <sepp00@web.de> writes:
> > > > David Damerell wrote:
> > > > > Shields; add a "shield" skill practiced by being hit with a shield
> > > > > worn.
> > > > Wouldn't it make more sense to practice the skill by being missed
> > > > instead of being hit? If the opponent manages to hit you, you didn't use
> > > > your shield successfully, did you?
> > > It should apply when you are missed because of the shield, rather than
> > > every time you are hit (or missed). A successful shield block is the
> > > shield equivalent of a successful blow with your weapon.
> > And there's the rub. Hits and misses are based (among other factors) on
> > your total AC. Individual pieces of armour are not counted. The
> > difference between a +2 shield and +1 boots on the one hand, and a +1
> > shield and +2 boots on the other, is nihil.
> Slash'EM can let you know which piece of armor blockeded a strike. And I
> don't think it could be hard to implement in Nethack. But IANASD, and
> Nethack's code seems as full of nasty things as the game itself.

Hate to follow up on my own post, but...

Isn't there reason to think that this system is in use 'inside' vanilla
Nethack too? Or are armor pieces that are affected by mêlée
rust/disenchantment/etc attacks just chosen randomly from all worn in
the outermost layer? Couldn't find information on this in the
spoilers...

/Kristoffer

--
This cookie has a scrap of paper inside. It reads:
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Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Kristoffer Björkman <kristoffer.bjorkman@frontnet.org> writes:
> In news:<MPG.1d29490c7f298965989700@130.133.1.4>, Kristoffer Björkman
> <kristoffer.bjorkman@frontnet.org> says...
> > Slash'EM can let you know which piece of armor blockeded a strike. And I
> > don't think it could be hard to implement in Nethack. But IANASD, and
> > Nethack's code seems as full of nasty things as the game itself.

SLASH'EM's code for this (missmu()) counts through the pieces of
armour (and magical protection) in a set order, adding the AC
contribution from each slot successively until it reaches the
threshold by which you were missed; however, gloves and boots only
have a 10% chance of being counted in for this purpose, and helmets
20%. If it doesn't reach the threshold, you get a non-specific "The foo
misses." result. It's somewhat arguable how representative this is :-)

> Isn't there reason to think that this system is in use 'inside' vanilla
> Nethack too? Or are armor pieces that are affected by mêlée
> rust/disenchantment/etc attacks just chosen randomly from all worn in
> the outermost layer? Couldn't find information on this in the
> spoilers...

Effectively, yes they are (in that relative AC contribution isn't
taken into account), but it's not strictly a straight random
choice.

For rust (and corrosion and decay), hurtarmor() keeps picking a
straight random choice (ignoring whether there's anything actually
there) from helmet, outermost-body-armour, shield, gloves, and boots
until it _either_ successfully rusts something _or_ gets a body armour
result, rustprone or not.

For disenchantment, some_armor() starts with the earliest present in
the list of outermost-body-armour, helmet, gloves, boots, and shield,
then moves down the rest of the list, with a 1/4 chance of changing
its mind to each slot that's filled in succession. Once it reaches the
end of the list, whatever it's come up with is the piece of armour
picked to affect. This is the same system that's used for scrolls of
enchant armour, scrolls and monster-cast spells of destroy armour,
passive acid attacks, and acid blasts.

--
: Dylan O'Donnell http://www.spod-central.org/~psmith/ :
: "Its habit of getting up late you'll agree / That it carries too far, :
: when I say / That it frequently breakfasts at five-o'clock tea / And :
: dines on the following day." -- Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark :