Reduce ammunition destruction rate
issueid=2957 05-09-2014 10:40 PM
Ancient Member
Number of reported issues by _Ln_: 97
Reduce ammunition destruction rate

I don't know when this was changed, but in p22 it seems like arrows/quarrels get destroyed much more often (probably with the special message "your -foo- is destroyed upon impact!" which gets absolutely ridiculous when you miss the monster). I don't whether this was intended as a nerf to slaying ammunition, but right now it makes using it extremely unreliable in comparison to previous versions which seems like a further imbalancing towards magic-oriented characters.
Issue Details
Issue Number 2957
Issue Type Feature
Project ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery)
Category All
Status Implemented
Priority 5 - Medium
Suggested Version ADOM 1.2.0 pre 23
Implemented Version ADOM r48
Milestone (none)
Votes for this feature 15
Votes against this feature 2
Assigned Users (none)
Tags (none)




05-10-2014 01:09 AM
Ancient Member
An arrow fired at the ground has around a 50% chance to be destroyed - kinda crazy.

05-10-2014 12:53 PM
Senior Member
I like ammo destruction. It gives reason to diversify your ranged strategy, moving into thrown rocks, slings, or even thrown daggers/spears/axes.
If anything, I'd like to see it further expanded by having barbarians stop being farmable in wilderness encounters! :D

05-10-2014 02:17 PM
Ancient Member
You're evil sylph. Pure evil.
I support Ln wholeheartedly here. There's way too much missile destruction going on and no good in-game explanation for that.
If missiles break and get destroyed so often, so should weapons of all kinds - spear shafts should break, iron swords' edges should dull, axes should chip and all weapons should lose their to-damage modifiers over time with prolonged use.
Mithril, adamantium and eternium missiles should not break at all, ever, assuming normal use.
It would be a durability of sorts, so well known among cRPGs since the early days.
But of course this would entail a lot of programming for little actual gameplay benefits and so it should not be introduced. This means however that missiles should be adjusted accordingly.
Sylph, your remarks about diversifying ranged strategy are wrong - I can't imagine playing a grey/high elf archer or any other ranged class and having to constantly switch to rocks, slings, crossbows etc.
It doesn't make sense, I want to specialize in bows and nothing else, why force me to diversify? Give me a choice rather than directing me toward specific style.
Barbs in wilderness are crucial for archery-based chars and should not be touched.
If anything, every ranged npc in the game should leave a guaranteed stack of at least 10 missiles of corresponding type.

05-10-2014 02:40 PM
Senior Member
Quote Originally Posted by Blasphemous
If missiles break and get destroyed so often, so should weapons of all kinds - spear shafts should break, iron swords' edges should dull, axes should chip and all weapons should lose their to-damage modifiers over time with prolonged use.
You should totally raise that as a seperate RFE! It would be amazing! It'd be especially great if spears (having wooden shafts) were hugely more susceptible to breaking!

Sylph, your remarks about diversifying ranged strategy are wrong - I can't imagine playing a grey/high elf archer or any other ranged class and having to constantly switch to rocks, slings, crossbows etc.
If you have the fletchery skill, you can just make more!
My problem isn't really with a high-elven archer (or any other fletcher) using a bow. It's more about non-archers having such liberal access to perfect ranged attacks, removing all ranged options from the game! I love throwing shields at people in the early game, but sadly it's hard to justify throwing anything as soon as you're about level 7 and have the ability to farm wilderness encunters for unlimited ammo!
If I learned anything from the recent adompossible challenge, it's that people aren't going to try to figure out any clever approaches to the game's challenges (such as the steel golem) if they can just farm slaying arrows from barbarians. It's that simple, barbarian farming makes all other ranged attacks pointless, and the reduction of arrow/quarrel destruction (suggested here) makes rocks, spears, scurgari and daggers even more pointless to ever train.

05-10-2014 04:48 PM
Ancient Member
Well this rfe was raised afetr I ragequit a lvl 29 bard trying to clear Ice Queen GUV and ran out of missiles after dispoding of 8/12 emperor liches. Trust me, I had level 9 in thrown rocks. The point is that only slaying ammo is viable against end-game monsters (especially liches with their healing overpoweredness). You can throw anything, sure enough, but it's not ranged combat, it's pure tedium.

If breaking will be implemented for all items, people will use artifacts solely. I see no reason how this will make a fun game.

05-10-2014 05:07 PM
Senior Member
Think of it another way though - what's the point of a slaying weapon (say, the halberd of the sun from the bug village), if every character in the entire game, bar none, has infinite access to SUPERIOR (6x damage instead of 2x) slaying attacks that don't put the PC in any danger of retaliatory attack? (Ie, it's ranged).
I seriously, strongly think that the idea that every character should have infinite access to safe slaying attacks is a ridiculous one. NOT clearing a GUV should be a sensible option for any sane PC.

05-10-2014 05:59 PM
Ancient Member
Mithril, adamantium and eternium missiles should not break at all, ever, assuming normal use.
Actually, realistically, they probably should break at exactly the same rate as regular missiles. Arrows for sure at least. A mithril arrow is probably a mithril head on a wooden shaft.

05-10-2014 06:22 PM
Qui Qui is offline
Senior Member
Well if an arrow has a mithril head and a wooden shaft and the shaft breaks, the PC should be able to collect the heads and use fletchery to remake mithril arrows... (no, I don't actually suggest it ;))

I think the amount of missiles is not a problem, the problem is that archery is the most overpowered thing in the game. And slaying ammo isn't the problem in itself, it's only required for really tough creatures/bosses. Normal ammo suffices for everything else. Not to mention that artifact missiles render both of those mostly obsolete (well, only required as backup).

Actually I think that in mid-late game, archery can solve any problem for any char. Well, apart from dopplegangers. Perhaps it should be somewhat weakened, at least for characters without the Archery skill? That way it would stay strong for some classes, and the rest will need other ways to deal with things. But it's probably discussion for another RFE.

05-10-2014 07:24 PM
Senior Member
at least for characters without the Archery skill? That way it would stay strong for some classes, and the rest will need other ways to deal with things
My current character wished for archery. :P

05-10-2014 07:43 PM
Qui Qui is offline
Senior Member
And I actually thought to add that in this case Archery would be worth a wish :P. From what I understand bonuses right now aren't great, and only unlocking a few talents makes it worthwhile. Anyway, do you feel it was worth it for you? Did you notice a difference?

05-10-2014 07:48 PM
Senior Member
To be honest, my wish for 'concentration' was far more important, and my wish for 'rings of regeneration' was also pretty useful (although a bit pointless given thieves and how many good rings they pickpocket!). I had spare wishes, and wanted lightning shot!

05-11-2014 12:00 AM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by sylph
If I learned anything from the recent adompossible challenge, it's that people aren't going to try to figure out any clever approaches to the game's challenges (such as the steel golem) if they can just farm slaying arrows from barbarians. It's that simple, barbarian farming makes all other ranged attacks pointless, and the reduction of arrow/quarrel destruction (suggested here) makes rocks, spears, scurgari and daggers even more pointless to ever train.
I don't buy your chain of logic here. As someone who despises missiles and rarely uses ranged attacks, I've never farmed barbs outside of ADOMPossible. As someone who values turncount and really hates tedious things, I've never farmed barbs outside of ADOMPossible.

Yet, I was 100% on board with farming like 3 slaying arrows in something like 2000 turns (if I'm not misremembering) for ADOMPossible because it was by far the best way to defeat the golem - in fact, I dare say, the ***only*** way to defeat the golem for a vast majority of the characters in the ADOMPossible challenge (I point to Fire's 5-for-5 record against the golem, even if one of us stupidly died later in the COC). With basically only one way to complete the challenge, *of course* people took it! But I have no idea what you're talking about with respect to farming slaying arrows - I had my last slaying arrow snapped only 3 golems in, so unless you're spending 10s of thousands of turns farming arrows, you're not going to get any *good* arrows [a lot of 1d6 arrows? sure]. Trying to apply the logic that goes into making a decision for a turn-restricted, extreme challenge game into making a decision for a normal game makes little sense. And, if people are actually farming barbs for slaying arrows in a _normal_ game, they're just being dumb and you can't fix that.

The thing you're missing here is that other ranged attacks *suuuuuck* past the early game - absent slings, they have awful range and no slaying powers. With a short bow, any shmuck can get more range than daggers easily, so I won't even talk about the not-uncommon long bow. Of course, people are going to go with the skill that most efficiently kills enemies! Increasing arrow destruction won't mean they decide to challenge themselves and train up rocks or what-have-you as that would be very far from ideal gameplay when they get more gains from skills in bows/xbows!

You're trying to apply your gameplay experience and make it everyone else's, but most people aren't going to take the non-ideal route to do things and that's totally fine.

05-11-2014 04:24 PM
Senior Member
You're trying to apply your gameplay experience and make it everyone else's, but most people aren't going to take the non-ideal route to do things and that's totally fine.
I'm not the one suggesting changes here. This is a proposed BUFF to bows, and I'm arguing against it by virtue of the fact that arrows are already powerful to the point of ruining choice. There's a massive difference between trying to make everyone else play ADOM like me (why would I want that!?), and disagreeing with a *change* that makes the already-completely-dominant playstyles even more powerful.

Oh, and I did the steel golem in adompossible using about 500 turns, without farming slaying arrows and without spells. I admit I did it that way, in a large part, because the idea of our entire forum farming barbarians made me feel dirty inside! :D
You said 'basically only one way to complete the challenge', but there were clearly several, just non so easy and thoughtless as the 'cure all' barbarian farming - which is much the same throughout the game!

In the late game, you know what I'm scared of? Doppleganger kings and greater titans. You know why? Because they're the only monsters I can't safely kill with my bow without taking damage. I'm not asking for a change (much as I'd like one), I'm asking for this glaringly overpowered attack to not be made even stronger!
ps. I feel the same way, to a lesser degree, about spears for melee.

05-11-2014 04:29 PM
Ancient Member
The problem is I am not asking for a buff. Increased destruction seems to have been added at some point in prereleases. I'm merely asking to revert it back, because I don't like it :D

05-11-2014 04:36 PM
Qui Qui is offline
Senior Member
Actually there is an inconsistency now, one way or the other. Normal arrows sometimes are destroyed with this new message, and sometimes there is no message and they are destroyed anyway (as in older versions).

05-11-2014 05:20 PM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by sylph
I'm not the one suggesting changes here. This is a proposed BUFF to bows, and I'm arguing against it by virtue of the fact that arrows are already powerful to the point of ruining choice. There's a massive difference between trying to make everyone else play ADOM like me (why would I want that!?), and disagreeing with a *change* that makes the already-completely-dominant playstyles even more powerful.
Reverting to previous behavior is not a "buff". It reverts the "dominant" playstyle to "previously-dominant" not "more-dominant".

Quote Originally Posted by sylph
Oh, and I did the steel golem in adompossible using about 500 turns, without farming slaying arrows and without spells. I admit I did it that way, in a large part, because the idea of our entire forum farming barbarians made me feel dirty inside! :D
You said 'basically only one way to complete the challenge', but there were clearly several, just non so easy and thoughtless as the 'cure all' barbarian farming - which is much the same throughout the game!
Congratulations. Some people with spellcasters killed the steel golem with spells. Our troll later killed a bunch of steel golems w/ moon sickle. Of course I was being a bit flippant by saying "basically only way" - but if you didn't have the ability to put out over 40 damage, you're in huge trouble, which was..many characters [your video no being up, I have no idea how you managed to do it with 2d6+14 damage on berserk, for that matter, though your tactic is quite common]. Again, though, you can't compare this challenge to a normal game - anyone farming barbarians for slaying arrows in such a case is kind of insane, and you can't fix that. There's a number of things in this game people can scum, and I think they're idiots for doing so, but if they want to spend a lot of time doing dumb stuff, I'm not going to try to stop them unless it's broken [and the rate of 'good' arrows from barbarians is...not broken].

Quote Originally Posted by sylph
In the late game, you know what I'm scared of? Doppleganger kings and greater titans. You know why? Because they're the only monsters I can't safely kill with my bow without taking damage. I'm not asking for a change (much as I'd like one), I'm asking for this glaringly overpowered attack to not be made even stronger!
_Ln_ isn't asking for it to be made stronger, but for it to be reverted to "previously-strong" behavior. I think maybe you are missing the point of the RFE.

05-11-2014 07:18 PM
Senior Member
I didn't notice any difference in missile destruction in my most recent playthrough, but if there has been a change, it's much needed one in my eyes, and I'd not like to see arrows get a buff. I honestly think that increased arrow destruction would make fletchery a more worthwhile skill for ranged characters, which I'd say is a step in the right direction, and not something I'd like to see 'reverted', hence me voting 'no' to this RFE. Ideally I'd like to see arrow destruction SO high, that only character with fletchery can use arrows as a suitable 'main form of attack'.
I'm sorry if my voting 'no' and explaining why doesn't gel with your vision of the game, but this RFE doesn't gel with mine, either, and TB encouraged me to explain why every time I vote 'no'.

On this note, I also think true aim and thunderstroke are making a ridiculously powerful attack unnecessarily more 'broken', and need to be changed.

I guess, to help us understand one another better, I should explain that I'm having trouble understanding why you want arrows to be more powerful than they are in the current version. Do you feel arrows are too weak? What are you using instead of arrows, now that arrows are so much less reliable?

05-11-2014 08:09 PM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by sylph
I didn't notice any difference in missile destruction in my most recent playthrough, but if there has been a change, it's much needed one in my eyes, and I'd not like to see arrows get a buff. I honestly think that increased arrow destruction would make fletchery a more worthwhile skill for ranged characters, which I'd say is a step in the right direction, and not something I'd like to see 'reverted', hence me voting 'no' to this RFE. Ideally I'd like to see arrow destruction SO high, that only character with fletchery can use arrows as a suitable 'main form of attack'.
But you keep calling this a "buff" when it is characterized as a "reversion". Such a difference in conception is a key to why we disagree. If you want things nerfed, that's great, but I disagree strongly. As noted above, I generally despise ranged attacks and use them somewhat rarely - certainly *never* as a main attack in the course of the game - and I very much liked the rate of destruction. If you increase the destruction rate of arrows so that only people with Fletchery can use arrows as a main form of attack - you are also nerfing slaying missiles (and such) very heavily. I don't like this for similar reasons to Silfir: slaying missiles are the great equalizer. No matter the class, if your damage output in melee or whatever isn't sufficient, you have slaying missiles to fall back on. This is of particular importance in the late game - I've tried to melee most things, and not only are slaying missiles far more efficient, they're the best option by a country mile for a lot of end-game monsters. In particular, while I still melee (suboptimally) such things as balors & Nurgy, I don't even attempt to touch lich kings and emperor liches without a really great undead/humanoid slaying weapon - the stat drains suck and they heal themselves way too much to kill in a reasonable number of turns in melee (seriously, that healing spell is fucking insane). In general, I thought the rate of destruction for slaying missiles was entirely appropriate, and I'd be very miffed to see it increased.

Quote Originally Posted by sylph
I'm sorry if my voting 'no' and explaining why doesn't gel with your vision of the game, but this RFE doesn't gel with mine, either, and TB encouraged me to explain why every time I vote 'no'.
I'm not like dissing you or anything for arguing. I just don't understand why you insist on calling this a buff when it's characterized as a reversion to previous behavior. They are very different things. And, I love arguing with people over the internet, so I have no problem with you explaining a contrary viewpoint :p

Quote Originally Posted by sylph
I guess, to help us understand one another better, I should explain that I'm having trouble understanding why you want arrows to be more powerful than they are in the current version. Do you feel arrows are too weak? What are you using instead of arrows, now that arrows are so much less reliable?
I haven't had time to play p21-23 - and, again, I don't use missiles as a regular attack, so this wouldn't have the biggest effect on me. The first paragraph above probably also answers this.

05-11-2014 08:58 PM
Senior Member
SirTheta - I honestly don't see much difference between a 'reversion' and any other kind of change. You can go back as far as you want in the ADOM version history in order to nerf or buff anything you like and simply call it a 'reversion'. It makes no difference, for me. The game is changing, and this minor change (so minor I can't even tell the difference after 100,000 turns of character in p22), if anything, takes the game in a direction I'd like to see it move in.
I agree with what you're saying about slaying ammo being the least tedious way of dealing with most lategame monsters - I totally do. The thing is, if slaying missiles remain abundant and available to all in the manner that they do currently, any reduction in the 'tedium' of batting lategame monsters will make the lategame a pushover to anyone willing to use slaying ammo.

Slaying ammo needs as many nerfs as it can get, and I'd not like to see one (even one as minor as this) 'reverted' (aka slaying ammo being (re)buffed).

05-12-2014 01:12 AM
Senior Member
I just realised that this effect applies to throwing weapons (I just threw a sword at someone and it broke). I think that's awful, and takes away the single advantage that alternative ranged attacks used to enjoy!

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