Balanced play is BORING (was: Another soon-to-be-dead char)

On Mar 5, 11:06 pm, Timo Pietil=E4 <timo.piet...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Andrew Sidwell wrote:
> > Timo Pietil=E4 wrote:
> >> CunningGabe wrote:
> >>> On 2008-03-05 15:48:24, Kenneth 'Bessarion' Boyd
> >>> <zaim...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
> >>>> Just source-dived, see what V SVN has done. I assume Andrew knew,
> >>>>  when thinking through that commit of MAX of launcher multiplier
> >>>> and ammo multiplier, that he was rendering:
> >>>> * Slay Animal and Slay Evil branded ammunition junk for all
launchers=

> >>>> * All ammunition junk for launchers other than slings and short
bows.=

>
> >>> It's a little counterintuitive, but the MAX is of the launcher
> >>> multiplier *from slays and brands* and the ammo multiplier from
> >>> slays and brands. So as long as your longbow is normal, it's still
> >>> your ammo which determines that modifier. Your Slay Evil ammo is
> >>> still useful. (Well, a little. Now slays only apply to base damage
> >>> instead of base + bonuses.)
>
> >> I hope that damage dice for normal ammuition has been increased too.
> >> Othervise fire brand would be just tiny 12 points more with heavy
> >> crossbow. You make a lot more with melee.
>
> >  > Seeker arrows are not so bad after that. Plain seeker arrow would
be
> >  > better than branded normal and mithril is even game.
>
> > Formula now is:
>
> > ((arrowdice * slays) + to_dam) * bow multiplier
> > It used to be:
>
> > (arrowdice + to_dam) * bow multiplier * slays
> > I'm not at all settled on this.  Other suggestions welcome, as always.
>
> >> Critical hits should also be tweaked. Currently difference between
> >> good and excellent critical is 5 points *total*, and you can't get
> >> suberb critical at all.
>
> > This is true.  I was going to have a go at that, but thought that
> > perhaps I should wait to see how the change mentioned above worked
out.
>
> Maybe if you make it easier to ammo (even normal) to have slightly
> variable dices and lower huge bonuses from extraordinary ammunition
> (those JLE holy might ammo and ammunition of wounding maybe even remove
> both?). It could balance out nicely. Maybe if ego ammunition succeeds
> with those damage bonus boosting rolls, it gets extra dice instead.
>
> BTW is there a reason why ammunition "of slay evil" or "of venom" can't
> be mithril arrow or mithril bolt (sval value 3, while those two have max
> sval 2)? It can be mithril shot. Other odd thing is that slingshots sval
> values start from 0 and bow and xbow ammo start at 1.

The main trouble I have with missile 'rebalancing' is not how easy or
hard it is to kill Morgoth.  That's a matter of collecting sufficient
supplies and then duking it out for 20 minutes.

A lot more of the game is spent before starting either of those
activities.

In 3.0.8 and before, an early stack of ego ammo was a valuable way to
take out Smaug--even with an ordinary enchanted launcher.  Just about
all of the proposals for missile rebalancing will eliminate this
'exploit.'  But of course, it's not an exploit, any more than
slaughtering a bunch of trolls with Rods of Light is an exploit.  And
it is a lot more interesting.

If you can't kill midgame uniques (Dragons and lesser Ringwraiths) and
midgame Demons and Wyrms with missiles at low risk, you end up waiting
until stat gain is mostly over, and killing them in a few rounds of
melee.  Or else you have to waste a lot of resources. (BORING!)

In either of these cases, what ends up happening is more power-
leveling via some form of s***ming, whether it's cloning Death
Quasits, dissolving cave-dweller pits, slaughtering mobs of weak 'p',
or farming Black Oozes. (BORING!)

If there is no way to game the system--if it is perfectly
'balanced' (BORING!)--people won't play at all.  Killing (relatively)
easy monsters is BORING; killing dangerous monsters will get you
killed if you make a habit of it.  So if you need to stock supplies,
you need the a relatively painless way to kill a lot of weak monsters,
whether it be dissolving orcs or harvesting Red Dragon pits while
wearing Nenya.