Gear issues

[Pete Mack]

I've said it before: gear in 3.5 and later is too reliably good. I am in the endgame of a 3.4 game on my phone. I have collected masses of Healing potions, via mobs and pits (dragon and maiar.) But my equipment is far worse than any of my games on more recent builds. And I still don't have sustains or res disenchantment.

[Character Equipment]

a) a Scythe of Slicing of Extra Attacks (8d4) (+9,+13) <+2>
     Dropped by an Ancient green dragon at 4250 feet (level 85).
     475 damage/round 
b) a Short Bow of Lothlorien (x3) (+13,+23) <+3, +1>
     Bought from a store.
c) a Ring of Speed <+13>
     Found lying on the floor in a vault at 3950' (level 79).
d) a Ring of Damage (+0,+13)
e) the Necklace of the Dwarves <+3, +5, +1>
     Found lying on the floor in a vault at 4550 feet (level 91).
f) the Star of Elendil <+3> (charging)
     Found lying on the floor in a vault at 4250 feet (level 85).
g) Green Dragon Scale Mail (Dwarven) (-2) [20,+30] <+2, +4>
     Found lying on the floor at 3000 feet (level 60).
h) the Cloak 'Colluin' [1,+15]
     Dropped by an Ancient gold dragon at 4250 feet (level 85).
i) the Wicker Shield of Elros [2,+20] <+4, +1>
     Dropped by a Dark elven priest at 4550 feet (level 91).
j) the Hard Leather Cap of Thranduil [2,+10] <+2>
     Dropped by Ar-Pharazôn the Golden at 3700 feet (level 74).  
k) a Set of Mithril Gauntlets of Combat (+1,+4) [6,+16] <+1, +2>
     Found lying on the floor in a vault at 4550 feet (level 91).
l) a Pair of Steel Shod Boots of Speed [7,+9] <+7>
     Dropped by a Scout at 3450 feet (level 69).

[luneya]

What are you talking about? That equipment set looks pretty darned good to me. So you don't have sustains or rDis. Who cares? There are plenty of common swap items you can use for sustains as needed, and rDis is very much a luxury ability. You can't fight the Tarrasque with this gear, but it should be adequate against Morgy.

[Philip]

I believe Pete Mack is making the reverse point to the one you inferred. That this gear is perfectly fine, but that gear in newer versions is broken and too powerful and too easy to get. This seems to be largely confirmed by the newest batch of stats.

[Grotug]

Taken from my current HT/Warrior, Galdo the Superior

3 best immunities,
all resistances (including pStun) except rDark, rNether and pConf.
600+ dam to everyone. 1075 to demons and undead, 975 to dragons (with two swaps).

[Character Equipment]

a) a Scythe of Slicing of Extra Attacks (8d4) (+11,+18) <+2>
     Found lying on the floor in a vault at 4300 feet (level 86)
     
     +2 attack speed.
     
     Combat info:
     7.5 blows/round.
     Average damage/round: 602.4.
     
b) the Long Bow of Garianath (x4) (+16,+28) <+3, +1>
     Dropped by a dread at 2100 feet (level 42)
     
     +3 dexterity.
     +3 searching skill.
     +1 shooting power.
     Provides resistance to acid, poison.
     Cannot be harmed by acid, fire.
     Grants the ability to see invisible things.  
     
     When activated, it disables traps, unlocks doors and reveals all
     secret doors in a given direction.
     Takes 176 to 195 turns to recharge at your current speed.
     Your chance of success is 90.0%
     
c) a Ring of Speed <+15>
     Found lying on the floor in a vault at 4250 feet (level 85)
     
     +15 speed.
     
d) the Ring of Numion [+28] <+4, +5, +2, +1>
     Found lying on the floor in a vault at 4050 feet (level 81)
     
     +4 intelligence.
     +5 dexterity.
     +2 constitution.
     +1 light.
     Provides immunity to acid, fire.
     Provides resistance to lightning, sound, chaos, disenchantment.
     Provides protection from fear, blindness.
     Cannot be harmed by lightning.
     Slows your metabolism.  Speeds regeneration.  Grants telepathy. 
     Prevents paralysis.  
     
     When activated, it grants temporary resistance to acid,
     electricity, fire, cold and poison for 1d20+20 turns.
     Takes 254 to 310 turns to recharge at your current speed.
     Your chance of success is 84.5%
     
e) an Amulet of Trickery <+3, +5, +4, +2>
     Dropped by The Mouth of Sauron at 4300 feet (level 86)
     
     +3 dexterity.
     +3 stealth.
     +5 searching skill.
     +4 infravision.
     +2 speed.
     Provides resistance to poison, nexus.
     Sustains dexterity.
     
f) the Star of Deleguino <+3>
     Dropped by Lorgan, Chief of the Easterlings at 1900 feet (level
     38)
     
     +3 light.
     Cannot be harmed by fire.
     Slows your metabolism.  Prevents paralysis.  Sustains your life
     force.  
     Radius 3 light.
     
     When activated, it maps the area around you.
     Takes 158 to 310 turns to recharge at your current speed.
     Your chance of success is 92.4%
     
g) Adamantite Plate Mail (Dwarven) (-4) [80,+24] <+2, +4>
     Found lying on the floor in a vault at 4250 feet (level 85)
     
     +2 strength.
     +2 constitution.
     +4 infravision.
     Cannot be harmed by acid.
     Prevents paralysis.  
     
h) an Elven Cloak of Aman [6,+32] <+3, +1>
     Found lying on the floor in a vault at 4300 feet (level 86)
     
     +3 stealth.
     +1 speed.
     Provides resistance to dark.
     Cannot be harmed by acid, fire.
     
i) a Small Metal Shield (Dwarven) (+3,+4) [5,+18] <+1, +2>
     Found lying on the floor in a vault at 4300 feet (level 86)
     
     +1 strength.
     +2 constitution.
     Cannot be harmed by acid.
     Prevents paralysis.  
     
j) the Jewel Encrusted Crown of Moreth [0,+12] <+4>
     Found lying on the floor in a vault at 4300 feet (level 86)
     
     +4 strength.
     +4 intelligence.
     Provides immunity to cold.
     Provides resistance to nexus.
     Provides protection from fear.
     Cannot be harmed by acid.
     Grants the ability to see invisible things.  
     
     When activated, it grants temporary resistance to poison for
     1d10+10 turns.
     Takes 102 to 111 turns to recharge at your current speed.
     Your chance of success is 93.0%
     
k) the Set of Caestus 'Belvair' (+2,+11) [5,+12] <+1>
     Dropped by a Blue Wizard at 4250 feet (level 85)
     
     +1 intelligence.
     Provides resistance to cold, light.
     Cannot be harmed by acid, fire.
     Grants the ability to see invisible things.  Prevents paralysis.  
     
l) the Pair of Steel Shod Boots 'Anielin' [7,+14] <+5, +3, +7>
     Dropped by Atlas, the Titan at 3600 feet (level 72)
     
     +5 intelligence.
     +3 dexterity.
     +7 speed.
     Provides resistance to disenchantment.
     Provides protection from stunning.
     Cannot be harmed by acid, fire.
     Sustains wisdom.
     
     When activated, it heals 1200 hit points, cut damage, and cures
     stunning, poisoning, blindness, and confusion.
     Takes 455 to 613 turns to recharge at your current speed.
     Your chance of success is 87.0%

[Pete Mack]

@Philip: correct. Yes, I can fight Sauron and M with that gear--it is indeed good enough, despite the lack of sustains. (That amulet of sustenance has really helped.) But it is much worse than a similar character in 4.1 would have. Almost no high resists except poison, and short on CON with any suitable gear for M or S. And it was much more challenging just getting there.

[Pete Mack]

@Grotug--much of the difference in character power is randarts vs standarts. But even with standarts, a 4.1 character would be stronger.

[PowerWyrm]

Randarts in latest version are absurdely powerful. Check my comp 216 characters: 8d8 lance with +2ea, "bands" with +all stats/speed/resists/immunities, shield with +2ea, boots of +14 speed...

The two main problems here are:
- randarts based off anything
- extra shots/blows on anything (less important for shots when the new +spr is ported to master)

I never had a problem with randarts in older versions when they were based off regular ones.

[Pete Mack]

Just cleared a checkerboard vault in 3.4 at dl 95. Lots of ego items, but few of them good. In 4.x, there would be no *slay orc* weapons or res cold armor. This makes a huge difference in the amount of actually useful stuff--i suspect it is the single most unbalancing feature of v3.5 and later.

Also: what does '/' represent in vault.txt? It doesn't show in the comments at the beginning.

[Nick]

Originally Posted by Pete Mack

Also: what does '/' represent in vault.txt? It doesn't show in the comments at the beginning.

I did some aligning of V and FA vault encoding, as they were different (I first found this out when I brought V vaults into FA and they were full of mushrooms...). This enabled me to just pull all the FA vaults in, but in the interests of retaining compatibility I kept water and tree grids. So '/' would be water and ';' would be tree, but they are just floor in V.

[fizzix]

I think we have a lot of information from stats and observation that the current version 4.x including 4.feature is too generous with drops and a bit light on danger. In some sense this isn't surprising, there have been a lot of changes to dungeon generation, and apparently some changes to monster drop probabilities as well.

I think a reasonable plan of action is to do the following:

1) Finish the set of features to go into 4.2, right now presumably this is dominated by the new classes and spell reworks, but I'm not sure if Nick plans to do a monster rework for 4.2 also. If this is the case, then rebalancing should occur after the monster rework.

2) Start a discussion about how to improve randart generation. One of the recent moves was to allow stuff like different numbers of rings/amulets/artifact lights etc. However, this has a few problems, notably that you can get really strong gear for slots that are typically not so strong. I don't understand the randart generation code, and I don't know how to fix it.

3) Increase monster density later in the game.

4) Reduce vault spawn rate (I believe this has already been done, but it might need to be reduced even further).

5) Reduce quality of drops through the ego/artifact promotion rates

6) Penalize out of depth items more. Based on some initial stat results, it looks like OoD items can spawn much more commonly now. We should look and adjust that function to make it more of a rare occurrence rather than once every 3-4 levels.

7) Consider weakening some standarts

My personal preference is to use 3.4 as a point of comparison since that is the last version that we did a dedicated rebalance for. I'd also be ok with taking the lead on 3, 5 and 6. I'm less comfortable with 2 and 7.

I do think the key is to get any major feature upgrades for 4.2 up and running before doing the rebalancing. I also think it's ok for 4.1.x to be an easier version of the game, just like 3.1 and 3.2 were super easy. It's the price we pay for new features.