Why not more randomness?

[SageAcrin]

There's variety, sure, but that's not what I'm talking about (except critical hits, obviously.) When the stage is set for a given fight, enemy types, resists, etc. are fixed variables that don't add randomness to *that* fight.

Entirely in your head appeal.

I personally much prefer the setups being randomized and hate per-hit randomization. You apparently prefer all kinds of randomization.

Regardless, it's entirely subjective to like heavy damage randomization, but I can make fairly good objective arguments in the favor of other forms of randomization.

Area, gear, etc. requires varying your strategies based on what you have, and is generally fairly cerebral.

Damage randomization is a game of "Prepare for the worst case hit whenever possible", and is generally something that mostly serves to kill new players-an experienced player knows the damage range and prepares for it accordingly, and a newbie fails to do this and gets splattered more. In practice, it mostly just ups the game's challenge in a way that frustrates new players.

Basically, think of a 50%+/- damage range as something that adds +50% to all hits, and you have how you should be thinking of it if you want to consistently clear, in my experience with other games with high damage ranges. That's not really desirable in a game that already has very high damage values.

And by the way, why isn't anyone lobbying to remove Air and Storm from the Archmage spellbook, since monsters can also use them, with lightning damage being *that* monstrously random? But if you think there's nothing wrong with either, I can't really see why adding a little bit of randomness to other damage types should be a major concern.

Because Lightning is across the board underpowered in my opinion(and many others).

Were it to be brought up to spec with other Archmage talent categories, I would certainly lobby for exactly that-and have in fact suggested exactly this change, upping its overall power and lowering its damage range.

I still don't get it. "It will happen eventually" in the current form of the game already, unreliable damage only means "it will happen sooner or later than it used to happen".

This kind of statement makes me think you don't have any confidence in your ability to clear ToME in its current form.

Some people do.

[Earwicker]

There's variety, sure, but that's not what I'm talking about (except critical hits, obviously.) When the stage is set for a given fight, enemy types, resists, etc. are fixed variables that don't add randomness to *that* fight.

Entirely in your head appeal.

Hmm, no idea what you mean here, since I was just stating a fact. Maybe the language barrier hit me again.

Regardless, it's entirely subjective to like heavy damage randomization, but I can make fairly good objective arguments in the favor of other forms of randomization.

Area, gear, etc. requires varying your strategies based on what you have, and is generally fairly cerebral.

First, I never advocated "heavy" damage randomization, as I've said before I'd be happy with a bit of (possibly Bell-shaped to make it even less of an instagib factor) randomization.

Second, the point is only to remove absolute certainty from the outcome of every single talent use, and increasing variety in monster types, equipment, etc. won't do that. Once you're facing a given opponent at a given moment, barring crits, your swing/spell will always inflict the same, expected, determined damage. That's what I'm up against, and that only.

And by the way, why isn't anyone lobbying to remove Air and Storm from the Archmage spellbook, since monsters can also use them, with lightning damage being *that* monstrously random? But if you think there's nothing wrong with either, I can't really see why adding a little bit of randomness to other damage types should be a major concern.

Because Lightning is across the board underpowered in my opinion(and many others).

Mine too, but that's from the player's point of view. How about monsters that use Lightning (among other things), since that was the point actually - especially on the higher difficulties? When they get lucky rolls, those nightmare lightning elven mages don't seem at all that underpowered. And I think I've probably lost more nightmare chars to Urkis than to any other boss, or close.

I still don't get it. "It will happen eventually" in the current form of the game already, unreliable damage only means "it will happen sooner or later than it used to happen".

This kind of statement makes me think you don't have any confidence in your ability to clear ToME in its current form.

True, I've yet to beat nightmare (although I managed to fully clear the Prides once), but since I mostly play nightmare ID nowadays, a clear is very unlikely to happen soon

[EatThisShoe]

On normal difficulty instagibs are pretty rare. But things which knock off 80% of your life are not. It's a threshold issue, if you increase the damage range you create the opportunity where there was none before, things which could never have instagibbed you now can. If before the worst damage you could take in one turn was 1.2k, with a damage range that could become up to 1.5k, now if you don't want to get instagibbed you must have 300 more HP than before.

It's mainly nightmare I had in mind, btw. I don't think variable damage would change much of normal difficulty, if we keep lightning at the far end of the randomness scale. If that's still an issue, add some Bell-shaping on top of randomness to make it less "random". As for the threshold issue, yes, I'm aware of that, but since you're obviously a nightmare player, a bit of extra challenge shouldn't frighten you, should it? Or why not just nerf nightmare and below monsters a bit and add variability? As I said in my previous post, the game would be just as challenging, except it'll be in a sense more "egalitarian", as far as character classes are concerned. What do you think?

Well I've been flip flopping between normal and nightmare, mainly because I find some of the tactics necessary to avoid instagibs more tedious, or cheesy than tactical. But normal is pretty easy for me. As I see it fixed damage allows the highest average damage with the lowest maximum, thus giving the fewest instances of instagibs, and greater ease in balancing damage, while still having high average damage output.

[Tomemancer]

There's no reason you couldn't use a normal distribution in the way that he says. You don't have to normalize spike damage at the average. For instance, you can normalize at one standard deviation above the average. You can also crop the distribution in such a way that anything outside one standard deviation is set equal to one standard deviation. That way you don't, upon really bad luck, get hit with something 6 sigma above the mean.

As an example of this, if the current damage is 100, then with the new method having one standard deviation be 10 and the mean be 90 would give you numbers between 80 and 100, with most of them being around 90. This makes the average smaller, but retains the same spike values.

Of course, the biggest problem with his idea hasn't been mentioned: the sheer amount of work required to rewrite all the damage calculations, playtest them, etc for such little payoff.

(Also, if you want to be pedantic about terminology it's more like mental arithmetic than mental algebra, since you're not manipulating equations, but rather plugging numbers into fixed equations. Mental calculus is actually *more* correct than mental algebra, since calculus has multiple meanings in English. It doesn't have to mean the subject Calculus a.k.a. single-variable real analysis. It could instead mean calculus as in a way to calculate something. In mathematics, we often use both meanings.)

[HousePet]

Have you seen the damage equations? I prefer calculus to those things...

Anyway, adding extra computations for not much gain is just going to slow the game down.

[Earwicker]

Anyway, adding extra computations for not much gain is just going to slow the game down.

Well, probably not much gain on normal difficulty, but...

Well I've been flip flopping between normal and nightmare, mainly because I find some of the tactics necessary to avoid instagibs more tedious, or cheesy than tactical. But normal is pretty easy for me.

Same here. Although I've found out that classes don't scale the same way on the tediousness/cheesiness ladder, because for some their primary means of defense don't scale well at all with difficulty (btw - in case it was confusing, when I wrote "nightmare and below" earlier, below actually meant insane, not normal.)

Eg, for archmages it basically boils down to "bigger shields", which is relatively easy to achieve, since it's mostly a talent-dependent issue. For classes that rely mainly on defense or similar attributes, there's no such obvious way when monsters with near-** attributes become common. I had a feeling that toning down nightmare+ monsters' accuracy and phys/mind/spellpower and adding damage variability might be a good step towards solving this issue, given that all classes would now have to focus more on a common problem (solving the increased "damage threshold threat") rather than on boosting means of defense that don't use the same logic and thus don't scale the same way...

As I see it fixed damage allows the highest average damage with the lowest maximum, thus giving the fewest instances of instagibs, and greater ease in balancing damage, while still having high average damage output.

Hmmm, OK, it makes sense in a way, but I can't see how it solves the class scaling imbalance problem.

[PureQuestion]

It sounds like you're saying "I want to be able to get screwed by the RNG!"

I'm not sure I follow.

[Earwicker]

It sounds like you're saying "I want to be able to get screwed by the RNG!".

More like, "I'd rather get screwed by the RNG once in a while, than having to rely on tedious and cheesy tactics (EatThisShoe's words, not mine, but I fully agree with him on this) for the whole of the game."

To the point that with some classes, losing on nightmare would probably be a more enjoyable experience than winning with the game in its current form. (Heh. I can't believe I just wrote that, but somehow, I think it's true )

I'm not sure I follow.

Nevermind, that's fine. It's just me. Let me tell you the horryfying truth: I'm an obsessive control freak who can't help checking every variable at hand before swinging my sword (each and every time I swing that f%$!?$g sword!), and I'd just like being a little less in control, because I can't help being a control freak, and being a control freak is time-and-mind-consuming.

[Doctornull]

Nevermind, that's fine. It's just me. Let me tell you the horryfying truth: I'm an obsessive control freak who can't help checking every variable at hand before swinging my sword (each and every time I swing that f%$!?$g sword!), and I'd just like being a little less in control, because I can't help being a control freak, and being a control freak is time-and-mind-consuming.

I get this. You're looking for a way to get the game to help you let go, to give up control in the face of inexorable and ineffable complexity.

However... you'd still be able to calculate and anticipate spike damage, it would just be a larger number than before. Would the larger number enable you to give up control? I'm not sure that it would actually do what you hope.

[Earwicker]

I get this. You're looking for a way to get the game to help you let go, to give up control in the face of inexorable and ineffable complexity.

I was only half-serious here . (Although I'm really a control freak, and while I don't *always* do it, I indeed switch to Brainiac mode for serious fights.)

However... you'd still be able to calculate and anticipate spike damage, it would just be a larger number than before. Would the larger number enable you to give up control? I'm not sure that it would actually do what you hope.

Good point, you're absolutely right. But I like surprises, and the mere thought of giving the occasional finger to the Greater Wyrm that should otherwise have deterministically burnt me to cinders is all I need to relieve my Brainiac woes, so in that case... that's fine.

[SageAcrin]

However... you'd still be able to calculate and anticipate spike damage, it would just be a larger number than before. Would the larger number enable you to give up control? I'm not sure that it would actually do what you hope.

As someone who's played more randomized Roguelikes to satisfactory completion(DoomRL Nightmare clear, Dungeon Crawl 15 rune); This is exactly what I do in those games.

Their average damages are quite low, though, with an emphasis on resource management. High, randomized bursts simply work better in that case than in this game.

Here, the main effect would be to make Nightmare tactics(relying heavily on "non-concrete" durability like shielding/heroism) a norm, which would be very frustrating to new players(Who in many cases that I've seen, are already unhappy with armor and Defense-based evade not giving the high, usual-for-many-Roguelikes payoff they expect.). And it would make those tactics just randomly fail on higher difficulties(there are numerical limits to those tactics in many cases, and it's often class-variant.).

[Umbrall]

Randomization in damage is pretty much pointless because the damage variance itself isn't really noticable compared to something like a crit, and even that has a secondary stat which is cool to buff.

Also, your misuse of the term calculus disturbs me.

[Earwicker]

Also, your misuse of the term calculus disturbs me.

Sorry, but when one has to use a language he basically learnt while surfing the net, he's bound to commit malaproprisms once in a while. Why is it so disturbing, by the way? Just curious.