Classes and races favored by newbies: an empirical analysis

[Al-Khwarizmi]

If anything, the way to go would be to boost the other star signs so they better support the archetypes they are connected to. That, at least, is what happened with the changes that Thomas already made - Tree received a bonus to Toughness and PV, and Wolf's nutrition bonus was boosted to 25%.

All that said, I agree that the other star signs should be buffed to offer players an actual difficult choice.
Having some star signs as useless as they are right now is just not the good way to go.
It may not be a multiplayer game but it's still a role-playing game and by having such a drastic qualitative difference between star signs, you only restrict typical role-playing choices.
I personally think star signs should buffed to the point where all of them would be used in specific character builds instead of choosing between only two.

I agree with this. Nerfing the starsigns that make a real difference is not interesting, it would be like removing the starsign feature altogether. Buffing the starsigns that do almost nothing is the way to go.

Tree is already quite attractive after the buff, I can think of characters where I would want it. The other useless or almost-useless signs should be made interesting in a similar way.

BTW, Cup is useful IMHO. The extra talent really makes a difference in the early game, whether you use it to get the indispensable TH earlier, or to get some defensive talents to survive the early game with weak chars while leaving the possibility of TH open for later. The extra exp is not bad for those of us that don't scum, and magical learning can't hurt.

The useful signs right now are Candle, Raven, Tree and Cup, and the rest are just not worth it and should be buffed IMHO.

[grobblewobble]

BTW, Cup is useful IMHO. The extra talent really makes a difference in the early game,

Extra talent? Wasn't that Falcon?

[Al-Khwarizmi]

Extra talent? Wasn't that Falcon?

True. This gives out that I just go with the starsign that the RNG gives me so I don't really pay much attention to what they do, lol.

[gilesc]

I don't think any serious conclusions can be drawn about balance from this data. What you see is a reflection of several factors:

a) What R/C/S people think will be powerful
b) What R/C/S people think is most novel/interesting/fun
c) What R/C/S allowed people to survive to victory (i.e., what actually is powerful)

You cannot disentangle them in a principled way without also looking at deaths and seeing how a particular selection affects your odds of death (which I plan on doing some time when I have a chance).

That said, I think the data mostly reflects a) with a smattering of b). In the case of races and classes, c) might also be a factor, but I think for star signs they play a role in the early game and are insignificant after that. But the main purpose of this analysis was to make sure that the advice given to newbies actually reflects the normal practices of the community, i.e., factor a. Although it is certainly possible that there are R/C/S that give you early-game survivability at the expense of more late-game mortality, for example troll race.

If this says anything at all about star signs, it says they should be selectable because a significant fraction of people are selecting them anyway. But I would also not object to buffing the ones that are infrequently used. At the same time it is obviously not intended that the game be balanced among R/C/S. I am more frustrated by the imbalance in random artifact and greater vault generation because unlike R/C/S, they are not selectable at the start of the game.

A final point is that if Raven is so OP, why do ultra players (relatively) disfavor it? They should be the most experienced cohort.

[Soirana]

A final point is that if Raven is so OP, why do ultra players (relatively) disfavor it? They should be the most experienced cohort.

Not guaranteed. One also need to factor likelehood of some making YAVP. The person achieving first ultra is way more likely to post than someone who already has dozen.
I was under general impression that typical first time ultra winner is guy who won few times and took ultra as part of challenge. Challenge part makes more likely things like going for less explored combinations, so I'd also expect less elven wizzards and Candle and so on.

[Blasphemous]

I usually decide on ultra at class selection so I can head in that direction from the start.
Star sign has little impact on me choosing to go with an ultra or not, since the impact it has is so much more inferior to things like gaab baay quest items found on time, enough PoGA to last through Andy's drains and corruption removal once I reach chaos plane.

[gilesc]

Not guaranteed. One also need to factor likelehood of some making YAVP. The person achieving first ultra is way more likely to post than someone who already has dozen.
I was under general impression that typical first time ultra winner is guy who won few times and took ultra as part of challenge. Challenge part makes more likely things like going for less explored combinations, so I'd also expect less elven wizzards and Candle and so on.

Yes, your first point (the "likelihood of posting" aspect) is an extremely good point and probably the biggest proviso of all to this data. If the Steam data will be publicly available it will not suffer from this problem. However I think we can agree that ultra players will be more experienced than first win players and that alone will draw out relative trends. It might be clearer if I had compared ultras to first wins and non-first-wins to first-wins instead of comparing ultras to all other, etc. It would also be possible to track each individual user posting a YAVP and assuming they get more experience with each YAVP posted.

That said, Candle is a little and Cup is a lot relatively favored by ultra players, so why is Raven singled out for disfavor among the "popular 3" signs? This shows "challenge" is not the only driver of the signal. I can think of two possible explanations:

- XP penalty from speed
- People are choosing classes for ultras that don't synergize with Raven. Archer, the stereotypical Raven class, is quite low on the relative favor list for ultra players.

[Peter Ebbesen]

Regarding the question of High Elves and Ultra endings. I've just returned to ADOM to 1.2 pre23 after a 13-14 year hiatus so am not certain of their current status, but they used to be essentially mentally deficient Grey Elves, who furthermore couldn't benefit fully from the Wand starsign due to starting lawful, making them an inferior choice for mages without anything positive to differentiate them from Grey Elves, and with a skill lineup greatly inferior to Dark Elves for melee or archer type characters.

A quick look at the manual shows them as still having the same skillset as they did then, and the Grey Elves too, so assuming that they are otherwise unchanged, it is hard to believe that anybody would play a High Elf except for reasons of ignorance, roleplaying, added challenge, or playing a randomly chosen character, none of which are greatly conductive to finishing with an Ultra ending. They were then, and to all appearances remain, the mechanically superflous race.

Oh, well. Time to roll a Drakeling Bard (my favourite combination) and discover all the changes.

[Silfir]

High elves were always slightly sturdier and more martially adept than gray elves, and Thomas actually adjusted the numbers a bit to emphasize this by nudging dexterity and strength upwards. If you were going to play a combat class as an elf, high elf was and still is the straight up superior choice to gray elf, and is often be superior to dark elf as well, such as on Healers (who already have Alertness and Find Weakness and lack Dodge) or Archers (because dark elves start with a hand crossbow and pitiful amounts of ammo to go with it). I've played far more high elves over the years, such as high elven archers, rangers, healers, assassins and so on, than I have played gray elves. I wouldn't even blame anyone for playing a high elven caster just for those one or two extra points of toughness, even if it results in slightly lower Learning.

Put in other words, gray elves are physically deficient high elves, and it's gray elves who are truly mechanically superfluous!

(Honestly, though - you would have trouble finding the difference in power level between gray elves and high elves with a microscope, let alone feel it in actual gameplay. They play exactly the same. ADOM is full of stuff that exists for the purpose of roleplaying first and foremost - see: starsigns. That's one of the game's strengths; it wasn't made with tunnel vision focused on mechanics in mind, because it was designed by a role-playing game designer, not a video game designer. Roleplaying is enough reason for something to exist or be the way it is in ADOM. That has not changed in the ten years it was out of development, at least not in my eyes.)



Like Soirana said, I think ultra ending characters are less likely to be pre-selected deliberately at startup, because players who tend to go for ultra endings are experienced enough at the game that they shun the stronger classes or even let fate decide for an extra challenge. The decision to go for an ultra ending comes sometime during the midgame, depending on whether or not an AoLS is found, and how strong the character is turning out to be (and how much of a masochist the player at the helm actually is). Considering the small sample size provided by ultra ending YAVPs on this forum, I think there's been more space wasted on discussing a supposed anti-Raven bias than is even close to necessary.

[grobblewobble]

you would have trouble finding the difference in power level between gray elves and high elves with a microscope

Haha, too true.

The roleplaying perspective is precisely why I feel that high elves are a little redundant though, especially now that we have mist elves too. High elf, gray elf and mist elf are now three races that all fill the same role / niche / concept / stereotype / "magical mystery treehugging immortal bowloving elf".