Game Balance: Slaying Ammo is Too Powerful

[Superteeth]

Hello everyone. I am surprised that either no one has mentioned this, or I did not search hard enough to find it. Regardless, if it was mentioned before, it has obviously not been fixed in the most recent version of ADOM. Why is slaying ammo so ridiculously overpowered? Even though it has been mentioned that archers are overpowered as a class, any class (perhaps barring duelists) can be extraordinarily powerful just by having some slaying ammo on hand. It is used to drop many end-game bosses in 3-4 shots, and that is not really in line with what I would expect someone like the Emperor Moloch or a greater balor to take. It is also somewhat anti-climactic that end-game bosses are falling after bristling with a grand total of 3 arrows. After so many things have been nerfed or fixed in 1.2.0, slaying ammo still needs to be addressed (unless Biskup gave a reason why he does not want to nerf it).

[JellySlayer]

IIRC, the reason slaying ammo is so powerful is that critical hits on missile attacks can do 2-6x damage (plus blessing bonus, etc.), whereas melee criticals only do 2x damage. While arrows and quarrels have low base damage (1d6 and 2d6, respectively), you can still get some pretty large bonuses to damage through mastery, Dx, talents, etc. So a slaying arrow could easily have a damage of 1d6+30, which can get up to a 6x multiplier on it.

I don't think it would be a bad idea to submit this as a balance RFE. There's no particular reason why missiles need such a massive critical hit modifier.

[SirTheta]

While I mostly despise missile weapons and use them very little, I think slaying ammo is mostly fine as-is because the game would be much, much harder for melee classes if it didn't exist as-is. Despite my distaste for them, I complete almost every game having used them in at least one situation (often the Earth Temple, but in my most recent game it was actually just to help clear a large threat room of diamond golems in UL).

I do think lowering the multiplier to something like 2-4x instead of 2-6x (which is what it is right now iirc?) would be a good idea, but I think it's fine that there are overpowered things in the game (unless we want to start removing acid ball, etc.).

[Soirana]

IIRC, the reason slaying ammo is so powerful is that critical hits on missile attacks can do 2-6x damage

The local love to absurd statements does not stop to surprise me - maybe I should go delete more posts....

I always believed it is 4x which gets to 2-6 due to cursed/bleesed being 0.5/1.5

[JellySlayer]

Sorry, 3-6 with slaying missiles :eyeroll:

[Superteeth]

I do think lowering the multiplier to something like 2-4x instead of 2-6x (which is what it is right now iirc?) would be a good idea, but I think it's fine that there are overpowered things in the game (unless we want to start removing acid ball, etc.).

Speaking of overpowered, is there a logical reason as to why bolts can be shrugged off, but ball attack spells cannot? It is part of the reason why wizards and decent spell-casting classes are overpowered (although I guess you could say this power is somewhat balanced by the extreme frailty of wizards and decent spell-casters). Just use the appropriate ball spells, and nothing can shrug them off. It makes me wonder why Biskup bothered giving the quickling bard Filk 500 DV when it doesn't matter because any weak ball spell will kill him in one casting. Surely at that point in the game no one is going to try to melee boss-type monsters anyways, they will probably just blast them with ball spells or shoot them up with slaying ammo.

[SirTheta]

Speaking of overpowered, is there a logical reason as to why bolts can be shrugged off, but ball attack spells cannot?Ball spells are summoned from the aether and completely envelop the area where they are cast. Bolts simply take up some indeterminate but small amount of space.


Surely at that point in the game no one is going to try to melee boss-type monsters anyways, they will probably just blast them with ball spells or shoot them up with slaying ammo.Not me :)

[Soirana]

IIRC, the reason slaying ammo is so powerful is that critical hits on missile attacks can do 2-6x damage (plus blessing bonus, etc.),


Sorry, 3-6 with slaying missiles :eyeroll:

For start two facts:
I've heard eyes make for good salad.
I've also heard criticals are actually stable increase in damage. Or no - they actually do 0.5 to 6. And most surely they also autohit suff.

[Silfir]

Missile weapons in general are a great balancing fail-safe; almost all characters have unfettered access to them and can become competent enough to fight effectively even into the late game. With the proper slaying ammo, characters who have a very hard time winning a straight-up fight otherwise are back in business.

ADOM heroes, especially those who aren't blessed with ultimate arcane power or otherwise class-based facewrecking prowess, generally rely on guile, preparation and a well-sorted toolbox to come out with victories in nightmarish confrontations with the forces of Chaos themselves. Potions of confusion, wands of paralyzation, the list goes on. Slaying ammo provides killing power equivalent to what even the strongest classes can do, to everyone - but is always in a limited supply. When you're staring down a dragon, frantically look through your pack and find no more than six quarrels of dragon slaying for your trusty spare light crossbow, you need them to count.

The counter-balancing factor to slaying ammo damage modifiers is already present in the game: It's that you only get a limited number of them. If the boss monster in question has competitive DV, half of those are going to miss entirely. If the other half only does double damage, it's going to make a difference, sure, but not an overwhelming one. It's unlikely to deliver on what the name promises: Slaying things. These are single-use items crafted for a specific purpose; they need to deliver, and hard, the one time you get to even use them. A slaying melee weapon stays in your hand for swing after swing; even with only double damage criticals, it will be more than powerful enough to feel awesome and be worth using.

There aren't many viable ways to play many of the weaker classes to begin with. Nerfing perhaps the greatest source of raw killing power they can obtain is just going to increase the gap to wizards, archers, barbarians even more. That's the opposite of balance.

[grobblewobble]

they will probably just blast them with ball spells or shoot them up with slaying ammo.
If you're shooting Filk, you want unerring arrows rather than slaying.

I'm not sure slaying ammo is really that much better than disabling wands / potions. Now that orb guardians resist some of those, maybe it is in some cases. But against many big monsters, a wand of paralyzation (etc) is just as effective as slaying ammo.

[Stingray1]

Don't you dare touch my babies.

[Superteeth]

Missile weapons in general are a great balancing fail-safe; almost all characters have unfettered access to them and can become competent enough to fight effectively even into the late game. With the proper slaying ammo, characters who have a very hard time winning a straight-up fight otherwise are back in business.

There aren't many viable ways to play many of the weaker classes to begin with. Nerfing perhaps the greatest source of raw killing power they can obtain is just going to increase the gap to wizards, archers, barbarians even more. That's the opposite of balance.

Personally, I think that the issue here is that there are some classes that are so fantastically weak that it does not make sense to play as them unless you can take advantage of slaying ammo. The main reason that all race/class combos are playable is partly due to herbs and partly due to slaying ammo. There had been an issue with how herbs work before, since everyone typically has easy access to them, making every character's mid-game stats (specifically, willpower, toughness, and dexterity) converge on a single number (25).

Not to mention that if one is patient enough, they could farm as many slaying arrows as they wanted from bow-using monsters.

If there are so many typically nonviable classes that have to rely on slaying ammo for the bosses, then it kind of removes the point of having variety in the classes that you can choose, since they are all going to end up doing what archers do anyways.

[littlebrather]

Not to mention that if one is patient enough, they could farm as many slaying arrows as they wanted from bow-using monsters.

IRC one can not, since milked arrows can only be 'of slaying' indirectly.

If there are so many typically nonviable classes that have to rely on slaying ammo for the bosses, then it kind of removes the point of having variety in the classes that you can choose, since they are all going to end up doing what archers do anyways.
Let then everyone starts as a CK, 'cause everyone ends game as a corrupted being. Or even stop trying to make anything in your life, since everyone dies and you are not exception.
Stop trying to make a Chess game from ADOM. It's good as is. All these 'balance' features are useful then you play some MMORPG or that new bright childish Dota2. ADOM is not a game there a kind of 'ultimate math law' exists. It's driven by the RNG-god.

[Superteeth]

I have milked slaying arrows from barbarians. They are rare, but virtually limitless.

About the classes: What this means is that the classes need more balance in some way. It should be possible to win with any race/class combination without everyone having to resort to the same tactics. At least every class should have something that they bring to the table, that can be helpful in the right situations. You cannot compare this observation with something ridiculous like "Why not always start as a chaos knight, since everyone gets corrupted anyways?" That is ridiculous, and you know it.

[Silfir]

The point is not that they rely on this one overpowered thing. They rely on an extensive toolbox of which slaying ammunition that actually deserves being called slaying ammunition is a part. To some extent, every character does. Slaying ammunition is no different from spellbooks, wands, potions, scrolls, et cetera. If you start nerfing those things one by one because they are too useful you're just making the toolbox smaller. The smaller the toolbox becomes, the more are you going to force weaker characters to grind until they can brute-force their way through late-game challenges. (The kind of poor soul that would grind for slaying ammunition from barbarians deserves pity, not game balance attention. You can only get the generic slaying suffix from shot arrows or quarrels; dedicated slaying ammo people can actually find in useful numbers without killing themselves is sparsely distributed.)

You must have an intact bow or light crossbow to use it with; both can get destroyed. For that matter, all slaying ammunition is made of either iron or metal and can easily get destroyed in turn just by having it with you. It must be light, since you can't shoot in the dark. You need a clear shot, which sometimes means you have to stay in melee range anyway. You only have a limited amount of shots, so you do have to train in bows and crossbows extensively if you want to rely on it in a pinch. If your slaying ammunition runs out for whatever reason, there's no telling if you can reuse it in the next battle, or even the same; it's even more vulnerable on the floor than it is in your inventory. Slaying ammunition also doesn't come with bells and whistles - the base damage is relatively pitiful. Compare all of this to using a slaying melee weapon. With most slaying weapons being artifacts, you can use them in melee indefinitely; the only thing that can stop you is a disarmer. The base damage on slaying weapons tends to be at least above average, too.

Slaying a full dragon vault with Wyrmlance is a risky proposition unless your character is very tanky since they will take some hits in melee. Slaying a full dragon vault with dragon slaying ammunition is straight up impossible - even if you're saving them for ancient dragons or wyrms you run out after a couple. Slaying ammunition is a valuable resource to be handled with care, where a slaying melee weapon is an inexhaustible bringer of doom and destruction. It's not actually overpowered, is the point. Slaying ammunition needs to be significantly more powerful, per-punch, to have a comparable impact.



Now, this sentence here:


Personally, I think that the issue here is that there are some classes that are so fantastically weak that it does not make sense to play as them unless you can take advantage of slaying ammo.

suggests to me that discussing class balance (which the thread is only tangentially relevant to) at this moment is just an unhealthy proposition for me, but here goes: Weaker classes exist a) by accident, b) to provide an additional, optional challenge, c) for roleplaying purposes, d) just for fun of it, and their existence in itself is not an issue, as long as ADOM offers a wide variety of ways for a player of any class to out-fight, out-think, out-maneuver or out-live the numerous obstacles in the game. It doesn't have to include slaying ammunition, no. But it doesn't hurt to have it in its current state either.



EDIT:

Please, please don't go down the "classes need to be balanced against each other" road with me. I'll kick and scream and yell obscenities.

There is no such thing as "the farmer way" to kill a dragon. What kills dragons? Weapons kill dragons, or magic kills dragons. Farmers don't get magic, so they have to use weapons. Armor too, once you get down to it - won't live very long wearing your work duds, that's for sure. One way or another, a farmer who wants to save the world has to do non-farmery stuff along the way. And it's the same for everyone; some classes come with skills that are relevant in battle, some don't. I can't imagine how you're going to have it any other way. Let thieves pickpocket orbs? Allow merchants to "h"aggle with Nuurag-Vaarn to buy the chaos orb off him? (Hell, merchants are all about the toolbox - more money to buy stuff, more shops, instant identification...) Even the weak classes have their strengths - it's just that they don't have direct applications when it comes to smashing dragon skulls in. That is perfectly fine. No hero ever had it easy.

[JellySlayer]

I have milked slaying arrows from barbarians. They are rare, but virtually limitless.

About the classes: What this means is that the classes need more balance in some way. It should be possible to win with any race/class combination without everyone having to resort to the same tactics. At least every class should have something that they bring to the table, that can be helpful in the right situations. You cannot compare this observation with something ridiculous like "Why not always start as a chaos knight, since everyone gets corrupted anyways?" That is ridiculous, and you know it.

It's definitely possible to win with any class without using slaying ammo. I actually rarely use it, even with weak classes like thieves or bards. Slaying ammo is uncommon enough pre-Casino that I don't rely on it, and post-Casino, any character is strong enough to drop even the most powerful monsters in melee. Regular missiles work fine for most practical purposes.

[Grey]

The specific slayers are rare enough that they're not a problem. The universal "of slaying" is perhaps a bit strong, but you won't find many in a normal game and they tend to disappear after use. As a powerful but limited resource I think they're fine.

And they're certainly not required to win the game! Some of us can win with drakeling spit alone ;-)

[Al-Khwarizmi]

I agree with Silfir.

Slaying ammo is already balanced because (1) it's rather rare, (2) it's consumable, (3) it breaks easily, and (4) it requires you to actually train the corresponding missile skill to be of real use.

If missiles did the same critical hit damage as melee weapons, it would be a joke. A slaying melee weapon can deliver thousands of crits, a bunch of slaying arrows can deliver four or five.

[LFk]

For start two facts:
I've heard eyes make for good salad.
I've also heard criticals are actually stable increase in damage. Or no - they actually do 0.5 to 6. And most surely they also autohit suff.

I don't know what this comment means. Eyes in salad? Is that an english saying? Maybe it's just from my area?

In any case, Jellyslayer was not too far off with his comment, it's not absurd at all.
According to the wiki, it can be 2-5x, while melee is always 2x.
If i remember reading the IGB, it mentioned something like damage* 1d4+2, so that would be 3-6.

I'm never concerned with researching that stuff myself, but I never assumed people are just rampantly lying about the crit roll.

Anyway, I don't really mind slaying ammo whatever way it is already.
Game balance never mattered too much, and especially not balance from class to class. I never feel overreliant on it, and without the power it's at, a lot of encounters would be quite a bit harder. If that's the intended goal, sure. Just for balance? Eh.

[JellySlayer]

I don't know what this comment means. Eyes in salad? Is that an english saying? Maybe it's just from my area?

In any case, Jellyslayer was not too far off with his comment, it's not absurd at all.
According to the wiki, it can be 2-5x, while melee is always 2x.
If i remember reading the IGB, it mentioned something like damage* 1d4+2, so that would be 3-6.

I'm never concerned with researching that stuff myself, but I never assumed people are just rampantly lying about the crit roll.

Anyway, I don't really mind slaying ammo whatever way it is already.
Game balance never mattered too much, and especially not balance from class to class. I never feel overreliant on it, and without the power it's at, a lot of encounters would be quite a bit harder. If that's the intended goal, sure. Just for balance? Eh.

I dug back through the archives on this. Empirical testing back from the google groups days (https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.games.roguelike.adom/u2EsuRVNbfg), regular missiles do critical hits 2x-5x damage, and missiles of slaying do critical hits at 3x-6x damage. I've seen similar figures reported elsewhere by people whose testing are normally very reliable (eg. Twinge and sorear), so I'm inclined to believe it.

[gut]

MY2CENTS: with overpowered wizards who have 0 skill in missiles (any), I usually kill the casino shopkeeper with slaying ammo found in the casino, as it (untrained, mind you) is just that much more powerful than anything my wizard can offer. If that doesn't put slaying ammo into perspective, nothing will, so there is no use to try further.

EDITTOTRYFURTHER: I recently saw someone one-shot the ACW with slaying ammo. Granted, I also saw someone one-shot the ACW as a barbarian, but at least it was a tremendous blow, which is costly because you A) have to be in melee range. B) might miss. C) might not kill it even if you do hit it, and have to let the ACW pound on you for several rounds. Seeing as how missiles (and magic) are distance weapons, thus avoiding monsters' powerful melee attacks, their most powerful incarnations should be less powerful than melee's

[TDau]

There is no such thing as "the farmer way" to kill a dragon.
You read the shining filthy scroll. It contains the secret goblinoid lore "How to dispatch dragons":

* The farmer way
You throw the Fast Farmer Seed™ to the red dragon. You hit the red dragon in the nares. The red dragon gulps. A Fast Farmer Sequoia™ immediately grows out of the red dragon! The red dragon is smashed in smithereens.

* The thief way
You pickpocket the red dragon. You steal a vital organ! The red dragon dies.

* The bard way
You play the fiddle. You get a shrieking racket out of it. The red dragon tries to plug its ears. Its forelegs are too short! The red dragon head blows up.

* The Troll healer way
"Here y'are, mr. dragon! Wand of calmification to calm ye burning belly"
You zap the wand of petrification. The red dragon is petrified.
"Whoa! Dat was... Damn labels, there so small, cant never make out what da say!"

* The Nethack tourist way
You throw the Chuck Norris action figure to the red dragon. The action figure back-circular-flying-kicks away the red dragon with style. You win a T-shirt!

* The merchant way
You throw a gold piece. The red dragon happily runs after the coin! You get the hell out of here.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

MY2CENTS: with overpowered wizards who have 0 skill in missiles (any), I usually kill the casino shopkeeper with slaying ammo found in the casino, as it (untrained, mind you) is just that much more powerful than anything my wizard can offer. If that doesn't put slaying ammo into perspective, nothing will, so there is no use to try further.
After shooting how many arrows? I've often tried slaying ammo at skill 0 and I typically miss like 90% of the time, or more.

Anyway, even if you hit a lot, it's still a rare item, unlike other resources the wizard has (like spamming acid ball, which I doubt is less powerful) which are almost unlimited.

What's OP there is the Casino.


EDITTOTRYFURTHER: I recently saw someone one-shot the ACW with slaying ammo. Granted, I also saw someone one-shot the ACW as a barbarian, but at least it was a tremendous blow, which is costly because you A) have to be in melee range. B) might miss. C) might not kill it even if you do hit it, and have to let the ACW pound on you for several rounds. Seeing as how missiles (and magic) are distance weapons, thus avoiding monsters' powerful melee attacks, their most powerful incarnations should be less powerful than melee's
I never one-shot the ACW with slaying ammo, I do remember I killed it with 3 melee hits (without tremendous blow) once.

[grobblewobble]

Slaying ammo is already balanced because [snip..] (4) it requires you to actually train the corresponding missile skill to be of real use.
This is a myth. I never train missiles and like gut, find that slaying ammo is still great at skill level 0.

[GordonOverkill]

Depends on... of course you can always try to get one or two lucky hits in, but you can also do that with that two-handed sword of penetration or whatever. Especially against the ACW I use slaying ammo at least in 50% of my runs (the remaining 50% is disable him and slash him with some ultra-brutal melee weapon... works at least as well) and it happened more than once that I ran out of ammo although I had more than a dozen missiles with me. Well, and I definitely never one-hitted him, even with skilled archers.

[grobblewobble]

You always shoot in berserk mode, right? Just checking..

I don't remember missing as much as 90% of the time against typical targets like the ACW. Yes you can run out of ammo.. But a dozen arrows of dragon slaying or demon slaying (ACW counts as both) is certainly enough for me, without training missiles. Bless (and maybe poison) your ammo for extra damage and pick up the arrows or quarrels that survive.

Then again, a thrown PoCC is auto-hit and hurts him worse than slaying ammo.

[GordonOverkill]

Yes, Sir! ;-)

[Stingray1]

@Al. You shouldn't fuss over what gut has to say, remember he's the only one that knows how to play the game and knows all the scums.

So, whatever he says doesn't affect anyone else.

Anyway, can we please stop saying slaying ammo is overpowered(we all know this) and close this thread.

[_Ln_]

EDITTOTRYFURTHER: I recently saw someone one-shot the ACW with slaying ammo. Granted, I also saw someone one-shot the ACW as a barbarian, but at least it was a tremendous blow, which is costly because you A) have to be in melee range. B) might miss. C) might not kill it even if you do hit it, and have to let the ACW pound on you for several rounds. Seeing as how missiles (and magic) are distance weapons, thus avoiding monsters' powerful melee attacks, their most powerful incarnations should be less powerful than melee's

I've recently killed ACW with 4 zaps of lightning wand. Let's nerf offensive wands, shall we?

[zasvid]

In ADOM 1.1.1 I usually dealt with problematic monsters deploying the strategy henceforth known as "disable and shoot with slaying ammo". In ADOM 1.2.0, since the nerf to disabling, I switched to "shoot with slaying ammo". I am pretty sure that ADOM would be more interesting and exciting if slaying ammo were nerfed instead, so that strategy would have to change to "disable and now what?", since the answers to that question are usually more limited (wand charges), less powerful (forcing you to consider spending more disablers or risking it) or less safe (melee a disabled monster might still put you in the harms way) - except spells, maybe.


This is a myth. I never train missiles and like gut, find that slaying ammo is still great at skill level 0.

Also, it's not like training missile skills is a problem. It's at most slightly inconvenient and you can prepare well in advance, after all, unlike melee weapons - where you have many different ones and training with a new one puts you at a disadvantage for a time and you never know which category will give you the best one (or even very good ones, even swords of sharpness might not appear in the game) - there are only three slaying missile categories, two of which provide abundant launchers and missiles right from the early game, and training them is easy, there's plenty of mildly threatening melee opponents that you can pelt with your missiles while they approach, which, arguably, is advantageous in comparison to whatever you might be doing otherwise.


I've recently killed ACW with 4 zaps of lightning wand. Let's nerf offensive wands, shall we?

I'm pretty sure ACW has been nerfed in 1.2.0. It dies too easily now.

[Stingray1]

There is many things that are overpowered, must we really now list the thousands of things and nerf them?

We are going to face much more powerful monsters in the late game than before, I have good reason to believe that we are going to need all the overpoweredness that the game provides.

[Grey]

We are going to face much more powerful monsters in the late game than before, I have good reason to believe that we are going to need all the overpoweredness that the game provides.

I think this will be interesting to see. If powerful monsters become the norm in the late game then we won't be saving up our slayers for the bosses right now. Which is part of the issue really - they're great weapons, but since we save them up for the bosses they barely get used, and we overkill the bosses when we use them.

[Superteeth]

I knew there was something that didn't quite make sense when people were mentioning that you had to train bows for slaying ammo to be of any use. I remember that my brother was playing a wizard and was getting anxious about fighting the ACW, but he went in, switched to berserk, and killed the ACW in two or three shots of slaying ammo. Hell, I don't even remember if he missed. Berserk makes a huge difference in your chance to hit, even with no skill (although, I don't see how foaming at the mouth with bloodlust affects your chance to hit with missiles). He had a look of astonishment on his face, and said that the ACW was too easy, and didn't understand all the fuss about him/her/it.

Also, were you really able to kill the ACW with 4 charges of a lightning wand, _Ln_? Last time I tried to use wands of _ bolt against him, he shrugged all of them off (he shrugs off high-effectivity bolt spells just as easily, too). Maybe you got really lucky that time?

[Grey]

Berserk doesn't make that much difference to missile to hit actually. But a good bow and decent dexterity is all you need really.

[Superteeth]

Well, that makes more sense. He was playing a grey elf with high dexterity (although it doesn't hurt to be in berserk mode, since it does increase to-hit a little bit).

[SirTheta]

The ACW can also be killed with about four zaps of a wand of poison which I come across about as frequently as enough dragon/demon slaying ammo by TOEF, is much harder to burn up while using it, and is easy to charge infinitely. Better nerf that, too.

[GordonOverkill]

Just today I tried to use some missiles with a duellist... tried to hit the skeletal king with a stack of 12 undead slayers... zero hits. Tried to use hunting arrows on a couple of karmic lizards... took ages although I had a stack of more than ten. Had to pick them up several times. Of course, sometimes you get these lucky hits, but I am quite sure that some of the situations that you guys describe were extremly lucky dice.

[Superteeth]

Duelists really suck at using missile weapons, though. They get the biggest penalty of all classes with them.

[Silfir]

At least in the case of the ToEF, Yulgash and the Ancient Stone Beast, the orb guardian it- or himself isn't even the main problem. The ACW is no pushover, granted, but I'm always on edge when I have to fight through the elementals and grues first. In the Earth Temple, dispatching the stone grues and earth elementals is definitely the main task, with the Ancient Stone Beast being much easier to handle, and with Yulgash the summons are by far the most potentially dangerous element. In none of these cases is slaying ammo a consistent answer. You can't cheese your way past every obstacle in the game on its power alone. Yes, sometimes it lets you win fights that you couldn't otherwise, or that would be much more costly, but the same can be said of many other items. ADOM would be boring as hell without its items.

[Superteeth]

I guess it is because I play melee-oriented classes more often than not, but I see the guardians in the temples as easy levels before having to kill the orb guardian. I guess it is fair to keep slaying ammo the way it is, but seeing as how I usually play melee powerhouses, I make it a point to kill all the orb guardians (and everything else) with my melee prowess alone. It adds an element of excitement and danger that sitting far away and shooting at the guardian does not.

[Iridia]

With the high chances for item destruction in most of the elemental temples, the rarity of slaying ammo, and the necessity of hitting in the first place, I think it's balanced. Using slaying ammo is a valid strategy, using a limited resource, requiring some training, and depending on either chance or item-protection strategies (such as rings of ice) to keep your ammo usable long enough to get to the orb guardian. To make it the equal of melee, archery needs something to make up for the fact that melee weapons are near-infinitely reusable, while missiles are not.

One sign that a game mechanic is overpowered is if you'd be stupid not to use it. But people still use both melee and spells to deal with elemental temples successfully. If a game mechanic is somewhat more powerful for taking down orb guardians, but not so much so that everyone has to use that mechanic, then I think that counts as balanced. Game balance is not an end in itself, after all. You want to have a game that's fun to play, and balance is only a means to that end. Since slaying ammo doesn't close off the possibility of using other strategies in the elemental temples, I think it's fine the way it is.

We need the game to be somewhat "unbalanced", anyway, for people who want to use the weaker strategies and classes deliberately as a challenge. Why do people play hurthling farmers when they could be playing a Candle-born troll healer? Because it's fun. Because they played that overpowered troll when they were newbies and went on to more challenging classes. If the difference between the classes doesn't change the level of fun, then don't mess with what works!

[gut]

> I've often tried slaying ammo at skill 0 and I typically miss like 90% of the time, or more

Hmmm, could be that I usually tangle him in webs first, but I usually hit at least 50 percent.

> even if you hit a lot, it's still a rare item,

I keep telling people this, but they never believe me. Just count the gift shop tiles.

> unlike other resources the wizard has (like spamming acid ball, which I doubt is less powerful)

acid ball melts webs and IS less powerful, though admitedly cannot be dodged. Still, acid
ball is a more dangerous way to kill most mobs. Even if you have radius 3 spells, monsters
can still get in melee range quickly and mess you up.

> What's OP there is the Casino.

I've been saying the casino = adom breakage for forever, but you can't say slaying ammo is rare
when you take the casino and other scums into consideration. You could say that most players
don't use the scums (like milking) but I think it is more accurate to say that noobs don't use those
scums. So basically, the game is made exponentially easier, but only for scummers like me :)

> I never one-shot the ACW with slaying ammo, I do remember I killed it with 3 melee hits

Silfir's magic-born drakish barbarian, hocus pocus, who was an archer anyway, killed the ACW in
only one melee hit, though that arch- I mean barbarian, prolly could have done it with one
missile as well.

>> You shouldn't fuss over what gut has to say

...then you went on to agree with me

>> There is many things that are overpowered

Please, tell us what these things is.

>>> I'm pretty sure ACW has been nerfed in 1.2.0. It dies too easily now.

agreed, and this is a bad thing

>>>>The ACW can also be killed with about four zaps of a wand of poison

OK, so that everybody knows, Ln used the bouncing technique, which at least takes skill (and
really is equal to 8 zaps). Also, there is a difference between surviving 4 rounds with the
ACW as compared to 0 rounds with the ACW. With good perception, you could kill the ACW from
outside of its line of sight. An archer actually doesn't even have to see their targets, to
be perfectly honest. When playing an archer in the distant past, I actually killed all the
monsters at the far west end of D:50 while standing on the far east end of D:50. To make
matters worse, I probably killed several mobs with each shot I fired. That was with mostly
normal ammo, now imagine adding slaying powers to that -_- Even my broken, scummed-to-death,
speedrunning, acid balling wizards have to get surrounded first.

[Grey]

You could say that most players
don't use the scums (like milking) but I think it is more accurate to say that noobs don't use those
scums. So basically, the game is made exponentially easier, but only for scummers like me :)

In this case I think the scumming has to be looked at, not the end goal. Wishes are overpowered but if they're rare that's not a problem.

For slaying ammo the only scumming issue I have is with the generic "of slaying" that you can milk from barbarians. All other slayers have a minimum danger level and a bit of rarity. I wonder myself lucky to have dragon slaying ammo before the ACW for instance.


When playing an archer in the distant past, I actually killed all the
monsters at the far west end of D:50 while standing on the far east end of D:50. To make
matters worse, I probably killed several mobs with each shot I fired. That was with mostly
normal ammo, now imagine adding slaying powers to that -_- Even my broken, scummed-to-death,
speedrunning, acid balling wizards have to get surrounded first.

Archers are pretty crazy powered, I think we all know that :) But we have a mix of class balances and that's fine, in my opinion.

[GordonOverkill]

You could say that most players don't use the scums (like milking) but I think it is more accurate to say that noobs don't use those scums.

Always depends on what you expect from a game ;-) Excessive scumming surely gives you a big advantage when it comes to survivability; on the other hand it gives you a big disadvantage when it comes to creating an atmospheric and exciting adventure. For a player like myself the last-mentioned aspect has quite some importance, so I try to increase my skills in order to keep my chars alive with as little scumming as possible. To me that's the most enjoyable (and thus most desirable) way to play ADOM.

[grobblewobble]

For slaying ammo the only scumming issue I have is with the generic "of slaying" that you can milk from barbarians.

Have you seen how common fletchery sets are in the latest versions? Milking barbarians didn't get you that many arrows of slaying (compared to the time it takes). I think fletchery is an easier way to get arrows of slaying now.

[SirTheta]

>>>>The ACW can also be killed with about four zaps of a wand of poison

OK, so that everybody knows, Ln used the bouncing technique, which at least takes skill (and
really is equal to 8 zaps). Also, there is a difference between surviving 4 rounds with the
ACW as compared to 0 rounds with the ACW.I killed the ACW with 3 zaps of a wand of poison (no bouncing, and at which point he was at severely wounded after waiting a few turns) and one shot from the RCT. I don't think it takes 8 zaps at all.

[Soirana]

In this case I think the scumming has to be looked at, not the end goal.

For slaying ammo the only scumming issue I have is with the generic "of slaying" that you can milk from barbarians.


Have you seen how common fletchery sets are in the latest versions? Milking barbarians didn't get you that many arrows of slaying (compared to the time it takes). I think fletchery is an easier way to get arrows of slaying now.

Quick fix would be just making arrows of slaying different item from arrows [currently it is arrows with suffix], just like foo slaying ammo is.
It is rather strange that better [or at least more universal] ammo is way easier to obtain than weaker one.



I've been saying the casino = adom breakage for forever
Let me see - casino shop is like really really good thing mid-game and is also on peaceful level with some currently non-interactive NPC's.
How about casino gift shop being unlocked in one of these new quests?

[Stingray1]

Still doesn't make the shop difficult to rob, how about the shopkeeper rather control the PC's teleports on the entire level and not just the shop area prior to becoming hostile?