A few beginners questions [Archive] - ADOM & Ultimate ADOM Forums

Elone

03-20-2009, 09:39 PM

1. Energy is something like a speed... your second speed stat. Codewise, each CPU tick, 1 energy point is added to each creature until someone fills 1000 up, then they get to act. This happens all until it's you who fills up 1000 too, which is when the game pauses and waits for your input. Once you learn some weapon or running skills, you will require less than 1000 energy for those actions, so you can act sooner. Training your weapons adds damage and DV and attack, but the main benefit is that you attack faster. You can observe the energy costs by setting them up in your dynamic display.

2. Willpower increases your resistance to confusion and some other mind effects, it gives a tiny bonus to HP, it makes some of the duration spells last longer, it also affects some other game decisions.

3. Because they are weak, compared to all other things that you may want to wish for. The 4d8 modifier as impressive as people make it, because the majority of your battle strength will come from your strength bonus, no matter your weapon. A phase dagger can help you cut through armour more easily, and can actually be useful, but when you finally get a wish... you start to think of all other items you would have instead of these two.

4. I didnt notice such a thing, sadly... I actually didnt notice much of a use of reading in the first place as the GB says it should.

5. They have literally 75x more chance to be generated than the most powerful books which lay on the other end of the list. Earthquake, Petrification, Heal, maybe some others.

Molach

03-20-2009, 09:40 PM

1) Takes a bit time to explain. So I will do it extremely fast. You have a "speed", and this builds up your current "energy". Let us say you have a speed of 100. Every "segment" you add this 100 to your energy. When your energy reaches 1000 (10 "segments") you will take an action.

Except if you have energy reduction, then you will be able to take an action quicker. I.E long stride, will allow you to take movement actions quicker. Training weapon skill gives attack reduction. Dual wielding will give a energy penalty (you might have to "pay" 1800 energy to take an dual-wield-action)

Quicker speed will of course also give quicker actions, due to quickly building up energy. But you cannot take more than 1 actions every segment, so speeds over 1000 are rarely able to make you move faster. Unless you fight two-handed with any weapon skill and any two-weapon-fighting skill

P.S dual-wielding is always bad for you, unless you wield the twins

You did notice my "hidden" kick towards dual wielding? Purely coincidence

2) Yes, there is a list. But since you asked about willpower; a) It gives increased spell range (light, bolt and ball spells) and duration (strength of atlas) b) It gives some HP and PP (possibly result of reverse-engineeringly affecting starting HP and PP, as manual states) c) It gives defense against mental attack, like confusion d) I can't think of any else just now.

3) Sword of sharpness: pretty good damage for a wishable one-handed item. But it can melt. Wish for "etenium (weapon)s" and hope for a good pre/suffix. Phase daggers are penetrating, and can be smithed or improved with scrolls, and its damage will be good enough with items, weapon skill and strength bonus. The point is that it totally ignores armor (PV), kind of like the achilles targetting system from MOO II. Or armor piercing level 3 mass drives if your enemy does not have "heavy armor" modification. So if you have a eternium weapon that does 150 damage, and the dagger that does 30, the dagger will hurt an emperor moloch 30 points every attack, while the eternium weapon does nothing. Phase daggers can be destroyed, are not extremely rare, and give an annoying message when you attack. High-metal weapons "of penetration" should almost always be treasured and trained in, regardless what weapon type it is.

4) I really don't know. It might, if any form of reading trains LE. And it is reading from a book, no less. It might be rather little, though. And it might also be that only true "study spellbook to learn a spell" that really trains learning. YOU can test this - just start a new low-LE wizard, and keep book-casting and see what happens.

5) Light and darkness are the most common books. You should find 10% of each. So 2 out of 3 means only that the RNG hates YOU. By the way, darkness is very useful spell. Nasty vortex next to you? Just darken the room, then kill it in melee. So do not mock the darkness. A quick count indicates that 25% of books you find should be offensive (Not counting bless/destroy undead, but including death ray and petrification. No, don't ask)

fifthflavorquark

03-20-2009, 10:01 PM

I'll answer what I know, as best I can, though some of this is speculation.

1. The loss of energy is expressed over time as a need for food. Certain things increase this- missile attacks, a barbarian's mighty attack, and drakeling's spit are examples. There are detailed explanations of hunger in the guidebook.

2. I know willpower affects casting in at least a couple of ways (ranges, radii, and I think PP). I believe it also affects hit points, albeit not as much as toughness. I've never seen a single consolidated table that explains the mechanics behind all attributes.

3. Phase daggers and swords of sharpness are good wishes for some characters. Many other weapons ARE better (mostly because they are ego weapons with a prefix/suffix), but these can't be wished for. So if you don't have a way to bypass PV, but want one, the phase dagger is a good choice. Yes, a murderous eternium dagger (or whatever) of penetration would be better, but you can't depend on the RNG to provide one. The same is true of the sword of sharpness, though I think in a more limited way. If you're specializing in swords, it delivers twice the damage of an eternium longsword/broadsword/scimitar. But for my part, I seldom wish for weapons- mostly SLBs, AoLSs, and SoCRs.

4. I don't know if book casting trains learning. I've always assumed that any reading did, but it's only an assumption.

5. I suspect there's a formula for this that's probably similar to the one for monsters. So you'll find a plain old kobold on level 30 of the ID, but you won't find a moloch on level 1. The same for most/least common kinds of items. I also have the feeling that the RNG doesn't quite run the same way every time. Yes, crazy, I know, but it seems like some games are a just heavily weighted away from/toward certain items and monsters. In all likelihood, I'm wrong and we're just seeing the law of large numbers at work.

Molach

03-20-2009, 10:16 PM

[...]it seems like some games are a just heavily weighted away from/toward certain items and monsters. In all likelihood, I'm wrong and we're just seeing the law of large numbers at work.

Since you use the word "seems" I'd say you are right. That IS the law of randomness and numbers. The human mind is geared towards seeing patterns, and so we find them. And the random factor usually produces patterns and trends.

I once read about a professor that would give an assignment to his (statistics-course) students. They were to flip a coin 200 times and note the result. The students then randomly drew a note, and half were thus told to "cheat" and just write out a "random" sequence. The professor was then very good (95% sure?) at spotting the real random sequences from the cheating ones. The trick he used was to look for long sequences of either heads or tails. A random sequence should contain at least one set of 8-in-a-row results, but none of the cheaters would write this, at it does not appear very random to a human mind.

But it is.

Personally, I believe that the flock of chaos servants surrounding Khelevaster have a greatly increased chance to have a RoDS, because I have found one there twice. What are the odds...so now I pickpocket them every game, even if I don't pickpocket anything else.

Remember, the RNG is out to get you. And she likes to mess with our minds too.

gut

03-20-2009, 10:39 PM

> I once read about a professor

That was pretty cool, got any more?

EDIT: Oh, and the reason the GB doesn't have much on energy
and movement is because the ADOM manual does. It's under
the 'Standard commands and movement..' option. It gives a
very clear description.

RndmNumGenerator

03-20-2009, 11:01 PM

> I once read about a professor

That was pretty cool, got any more?

Not exactly the same thing, but I remember once that there was a professor who, at the end of the term, gave an announcement to the class. He told them "Since you have all been such a great class this semester, I will give you a choice. If you get up and leave right now, I will give you 80% on your final test. Otherwise, you can stay and take the test." The professor then watched as nearly 9/10 of his students got up and left. After everyone was out the door, he walked around and handed out a slip of paper saying "Congratulations, you got 100%, now go outside and enjoy the day."

JellySlayer

03-20-2009, 11:18 PM

Hi,
here are some of the questions the guidebook didnt answered:

1st: How does movement/attack energy reduction works?

There's an excellent description in the manual.

2nd: Is there a list of the mechanics of the attributs? (especially willpower, i dont have a clue what this attribute does exept increasing spellranges)

Strength improves damage (and to-hit a bit too) of melee weapons, and determines your carrying capacity. You get 100 stones per 1 strength until ~20, and then it ramps up a bit from there. Strength also has a small effect on health.

Learning affects skill increases, both in the game and at level up (you get 3 increases for learning <15, and one more for every 5 learning above that). It also greatly increases your chances of learning spells from books.

Willpower affects character resistance to confusion attacks (very important... a lot of very powerful monsters use confusion); it also increases the range of spells. Most notably, for every 16 willpower, the range of BALL spells increases by 1... getting willpower >32 is very, very desirable for magic users. Willpower also has a small effect on health and power points.

Dexterity affects to-hit and damage for missile weapons, and to-hit for some melee weapons. High dexterity also makes it more likely that the character will dodge traps (and spells?) and increases DV at high values.

Toughness strongly affects the PCs hit points, and high toughness also gives free points of PV. Characters with high toughness also aren't as strongly affected by poison and disease.

Charisma makes stores cheaper for MALES, makes it easier for your to give your pets orders.

Appearances makes stores cheaper for FEMALES. I don't know of any other effects.

Mana increases power points. I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that having high mana may have some effect on the PC's luck. If your starting mana is >18, you get an extra talent.

Perception increases the PC's sight range and increases the probability of detecting traps and secret doors.

3rd: the guidebook constantly refers to swords of sharpness and phase daggers as wish-worthy, but the stats of these weapons look pretty crap

If you're DESPERATE for a weapon, wishing for a sword of sharpness could do in a pinch. Personally, I would never wish for such a thing (mace of destruction is better anyway (it's adamantium so it is unlikely to get damaged), and is also wishable). Phase daggers penetrate your opponent's armour on every hit, which makes them useful against high PV monsters if you haven't found something better with the "of penetration" suffix.

4th: Does bookcasting train LE?

Not that I've heard, no. The only way that I know to train learning is to read very difficult spellbooks (or lots and lots of scrolls and easy spellbooks). There are usually easier ways to increase this stat to respectable (~20 is sufficient for most characters) values without having to do intensive training.

5th: Why two thrids of the spellbooks i find are books of darkness?^^

Bad luck. Darkness is a pretty good spell though. There are a huge number of monsters that cannot fight in darkness, including some very powerful (or annoying) ones.

Silfir

03-21-2009, 12:42 AM

1. The game computes in so-called segments. Each segment, characters accumulate energy points equal to their speed score. Once they have collected 1000 energy points or more, they are allowed to act. Most actions use 1000 energy points by standard, but attacking uses less once you're trained in the weapon, and moving uses less once you have Long Stride. Some actions use up more energy points, like mighty blows. Anyway, once you act, those energy points are deducted, and it's back to building up to 1000 energy points by collecting an amount equal to your speed score each segment.

2. What people said.

3. Swords of sharpness are the most powerful kind of sword by quite a bit, but I have to agree - maces of destruction make more sense since they do much more raw damage and are Basher-compatible. Phase daggers are special since they ignore PV. If you don't have a penetration weapon, wishing for phase daggers might be prudent indeed.

4. As far as I know, no. Reading spellbooks does increase Learning, but not as reliably as one would wish. I think it depends on how much spell knowledge you have in the spell, and maybe on the difficulty. I've never heard of reading scrolls increasing Learning - Literacy, yes.

5. As has been said, spellbooks of Darkness are just more common than many other spellbooks, and like Molach said, these perceived anomalies are perfectly normal in randomness.

sgeos

03-21-2009, 12:42 AM

You should make sure to read both the manual and guidebook. They both have fantastic information. While you are at it, memorize both. =)

gut

03-21-2009, 07:49 AM

I can't memorize trap order for the life of me.
The rest of it, I've got ; )
I keeed!

sgeos

03-21-2009, 11:05 AM

Surely you must know the trap number for a teleport trap.

Grey

03-21-2009, 01:04 PM

> I once read about a professor

That was pretty cool, got any more?

I read once about some scientific testing on human and animal pattern recognition that is quite related to how ADOM players invent little ideas about the game. In one experiment a bunch of pigeons were put in boxes with a feed chute at the top. Every 60 seconds a piece of corn was released. However the pigeons would get impatient at waiting for the next piece, and so would start pecking at the tube or flapping about. After a while it was recognised that each pigeon had their own individual repetitive behavioural pattern to try and increase the rate of the corn dropping - some were pecking, others flapping, others stamping and jumping, and so on. Of course the rate of corn dropping stayed the same, but the pigeons kept on doing these repetitive actions thinking it was somehow making the corn come out faster.

Another interesting experiement was carried out by a team of Japanese behavioural psychologists, this time on humans. Test subjects were put in a room without any instructions. Behind a perspex screen was a number display, above which it said "points". At random time intervals the number display would increase by one. The test subjects obviously interpreted that they were meant to try and score points, but without any instructions as to how. Some started shouting, others banging their hands on the table in the room, other jumping around, and some even throwing themselves heavily against the perspex screen, thinking that this was affecting the points counter. The interesting thing is that once someone chose a particular behaviour they kept repeating it, even when it didn't seem to be working. The fact is that sometimes they'd, say, slam their hand against the table, and the points counter would go up, and so they'd feel sure they did the right thing. If they slammed their hand and the points counter didn't increase then they'd think that they somehow did it wrong, maybe it wasn't hard enough, and they would try again, and lo and behold after a few tries they'd "get it right". But of course it had nothing at all to do with their actions - it was all random.

This is the same in ADOM, where we remember in particular the successes of our so-called strategies, and put to the back of our heads the failures, thinking them to be flukes or something we didn't do quite right according to our invented formulas. Same happens in real life, with horoscopes and religion and lucky numbers and all sorts of crap. The fact is most things in life are fairly random, or unpredictable at best, but we like to imagine different patterns and explanations for everything :)

Silfir

03-21-2009, 01:50 PM

There was a time I strongly suspected that the Concentration talent could be 'a'pplied during confusion to quicken recovery. I tried it, and sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't... The truth is probably that it never worked, only sometimes it happened to wear off at the right time.

Grey

03-21-2009, 01:54 PM

I've done that too, Silfir :) When confused there's little you can do anyway, so applying a skill is an easy way to rest on the spot at least.

gut

03-21-2009, 08:32 PM

> even throwing themselves heavily against the perspex screen,

Describes my ADOM playstyle perfectly : )

More, more!

Evil Knievel

03-22-2009, 12:48 AM

@grey:
I like that. I'lll think about it more, it seems to hold explanations for a lot of things...

And the reason for the existance of faith and religion can be given by these results in an amazingly convincing way. Don#t know if that is all to it though and I am too drunk to think about it noww...

Grey

03-22-2009, 02:51 AM

Grey

03-22-2009, 01:08 PM

Ugh, I have a god-awful hangover this morning, and reading my stupid drunken posts doesn't help :(

Evil Knievel

03-22-2009, 02:53 PM

same with me, and painkillers are at work already... actually after waking up, i realized, it was no longer morning... about these 2 experiments however, probably you don't, but if you had some citations on that, i would love to hear about them.

Grey

03-22-2009, 04:46 PM

I read about them in the book "Tricks of the Mind" by Derren Brown. Lots of interesting stuff in that book. Don't have it around at the moment to reference though...

RndmNumGenerator

03-22-2009, 05:10 PM

I had a question I thought I would just post in here instead of starting a new thread:

Normally when pickpocketing I can steal something, or at least generate the no value message, withing 3 or 4 attempts. However, every once in a while I get a monster that seems to be resistant to pickpocketing. I can try 10, 20 or more times and still get the "You fail badly" message(This is with Pickpocketing 70+). Is there any evidence that might support these monsters having better pickpocket items, or would it be a better use of time just to kill them and move on?

w4ldf33

04-05-2009, 09:38 AM

Soirana

04-05-2009, 11:32 AM

Here are some new questions:

1st: How are the spellcastings per book read calculated? With similiar chars (GEW Le 20+) the difference between 80- 700 castings from the first bolt spell strikes me as odd and quite large. Does blessing important books help (Tele, Acid/Ice Ball)?
2nd: Why do necromancers start with such horrible modifiers in Food preservation? Getting it to 90 seems a daunting task.
3rd: How do you cope with loosing your concentration and dying needlessly (BUGWIL springs to mind)? Just stop playing for the day or do you have ways to motivate yourself to get a new char started?

1: Learning, Willpower, char level and class are clearly factors. I've heard Mana and race being factored but these are probably rumors.
Luck might be involved, but that one is always suspected.
Status of book is also important so bless your books.

2:Pick race with food preservation if that makes a problem... Or keep some apples in backpack and put skill to 60 in reasonable timeframe. After extra corpse generation kicks all you need is to kill more mobs...

3: We all die needlesly sometimes... If you need extra motivation for new char maybe it is time to do a break.

gut

04-05-2009, 02:59 PM

> 1st: How are the spellcastings per book read calculated?

>> : Learning, Willpower, char level and class are clearly factors.

I'm not sure there has been any code-dived info on the matter,
but in my playing exp, I have only noticed a few of these. I
think that the Le stat accounts for the lionshare of spell
reading profficiency. The difference between even 23 and 25
seems very signifigant when trying to learn spells such as
acid ball. The literacy skill is probably the next biggest
factor, accounting for most of what the Le stat doesn't. I
personally think that class has the next biggest impact, as
a barbarian with Le = 25 and literacy = 100 will still be
embarassed by what a wizzy can do. I have never noticed
the Wi stat having an effect at all, and the same goes for
exp. level, but I haven't tested this with version 1.1.1.

> With similiar chars (GEW Le 20+) the difference between 80- 700

Yep, that happens, and I don't know why. Similarly strange is
that one can read the exact same book twice in a row, recieving
~80 castings for the first read, and ~250 castings for the
second. I assume it is an RNG thing, and the PC just rolled
something that sucked donkey.

> Does blessing important books help (Tele, Acid/Ice Ball)?

In my opinion no, but it may help in helping one to have a chance
at successfully reading the book, or at least avoiding disaster
should a reading fail. I'm pretty sure that the concentration
skill works the same way, but again, this is all opinion.

> 2nd: Why do necromancers start with such horrible modifiers

That is a simple difference in classes. Rangers, beastfighters,
and especially bards are designed to all have amazing skill
modifiers. Usually these classes have amazing class abilities
also, but not so much for rangers. Necro's, elementalists,
and um, um, mindcrafters, and maybe some others don't have
amazing skill modifiers or class powers, but they have other
'special' abilities that make them unique. If a class could
create undead, blast minds, recieve free spells with each
exp. level, AND have amazing skills, things just wouldn't be
as balanced as they are. In my opinion it is things like
this that make ADOM the game that it is, still enjoyable even
after years.

> How do you cope with loosing your concentration and dying
> needlessly (BUGWIL springs to mind)? Just stop playing for
> the day or do you have ways to motivate yourself to get a

Both. In the past I have stopped playing ADOM for years at
a time, but I always come back. As for motivation, personally
I want to beat the piety scummer for 3rd place on the HoF.
That motivates me to kill elves by the hundreds. On the bright
side, the more PC's you slaughter, the easier it becomes.
After a while, just dub yourself a masochist, and learn to
like it : )

Soirana

04-05-2009, 03:29 PM

The literacy skill is probably the next biggest factor

more or less, true, although i always believed literacy is just check on not failing to read book.

a barbarian with Le = 25 and literacy = 100

In normal games barb do not obtain Literacy 100. If you have data share it... I know mindcrafters are screwed on reading, while wizards, priests and i believe healers have decent affinity to books. Well again these have decent literacy to start with.

I have never noticed the Wi stat having an effect at all, and the same goes for
exp. level

Maybe not for wizards who are damn good anyway. My experience is based on assassins xp levels do matter and i believe Wi does, although later usually comes with increase of Le, literacy and i never tested it out indepedently.

> With similiar chars (GEW Le 20+) the difference between 80- 700

I always believed in borderline cases it is better to clear memmory and learn a new when on top of prior knowledge. Well, again it is possibly just superstition.

> Does blessing important books help (Tele, Acid/Ice Ball)?

In my opinion no, but it may help in helping one to have a chance
at successfully reading the book, or at least avoiding disaster
should a reading fail.

While casts per read can be discussed, reads per book clearly increases with books status, so casts per book increases too.
If you do not believe in this I will seek for some stat table between my old data.

I'm pretty sure that the concentration skill works the same way, but again, this is all opinion.

I always believed having/ not having concentration is main factor. Well, it is a pity i do not know easy way to remove skill, checking wizard without concentration should be fun.

Maul

04-05-2009, 03:38 PM

more or less, true, although i always believed literacy is just check on not failing to read book.

In normal games barb do not obtain Literacy 100. If you have data share it... I know mindcrafters are screwed on reading, while wizards, priests and i believe healers have decent affinity to books. Well again these have decent literacy to start with.

Maybe not for wizards who are damn good anyway. My experience is based on assassins xp levels do matter and i believe Wi does, although later usually comes with increase of Le, literacy and i never tested it out indepedently.

> With similiar chars (GEW Le 20+) the difference between 80- 700

I always believed in borderline cases it is better to clear memmory and learn a new when on top of prior knowledge. Well, again it is possibly just superstition.

While casts per read can be discussed, reads per book clearly increases with books status, so casts per book increases too.
If you do not believe in this I will seek for some stat table between my old data.

I always believed having/ not having concentration is main factor. Well, it is a pity i do not know easy way to remove skill, checking wizard without concentration should be fun.

Mine is already at literacy 100 - I don't know how normal a game it is, although in fact, it is my first game past Nuurag-Vaarn and so I'm pretty careful with him. Just check out the thread about Diego.

Soirana

04-05-2009, 03:43 PM

okay, in normal games played by me barbs do not get literacy at 100.

Silfir

04-05-2009, 04:57 PM

I think "normal game" and "game played by Soirana" are pretty much mutually exclusive :)

gut

04-05-2009, 06:47 PM

> In normal games barb do not obtain Literacy 100. If you have data share it...

Drop all scrolls except for Pyramid invitation, then:

'r' 'a' 'enter'

Either copy/paste or do it manually 'till fingers bleed.

> My experience is based on assassins xp levels do matter and i believe Wi does,

Yep, I was talking about wizards. It may be different for others.

> While casts per read can be discussed, reads per book clearly increases with
> books status, so casts per book increases too. If you do not believe in this I will
> seek for some stat table between my old data.

I do not believe that a books internal counter is increased
by blessing it, nor decreased by cursing it. I will check
this later with adombot to be sure though.

> having concentration is main factor. Well, it is a pity i do not know easy
> way to remove skill,

While I'm at it, maybe I'll generate a farmer, and adombot
him into a wizzy, then we'll see : )

Soirana

04-05-2009, 07:01 PM

While I'm at it, maybe I'll generate a farmer, and adombot
him into a wizzy, then we'll see : )

Which installs all wizard skills on char automatically...

gut

04-05-2009, 07:35 PM

It sure didn't when your mindcrafter got changed into
a farmer. Remember 'divine finger'.

Soirana

04-05-2009, 08:04 PM

mmm... I thought i picked gardening that way...

gut

04-05-2009, 08:31 PM

Some very minor testing:

1. Generated a farmer with a Le stat of 8.
2. Adombotted him a wishing wand, literacy, and a book of slow poison.
Also changed him to a wizzy, no, skills didn't come installed : )
3. He couldn't read it so I wished his Le to 15, still no.
4. I got him an exp. level and pumped literacy to ~70.
5. He now can learn slow and neutralize poison, and gets ~250
castings per one reading each.
6. Try his hand at learning 'darkness' for ~220.
7. Pump literacy to 100 and try learning 'light' for ~220.
8. Give the guy concentration and gets ~110 castings per reading of
both fire and acid bolt.
9. Get an exp. level and pump concentration to 86.
10. Read frost once for ~120, lightning bolt once for ~90, magic
missile for ~130 and teleportation for ~110.
11. Wished for AKW and PC reached exp. level 23 while exhausting MM
spell, no increases to literacy or concentration.
12. One reading of stun ray gave ~200, iceball gave ~60, magic missile
gave ~140.
13. Changed him back to a farmer.
14. It took him two tries to learn cure light wounds for ~130, he
learned fire ball on the first try for ~50, then tried acid
ball and 'felt power drain away', which was the first penalty.

This is a pitifully hasty test, but it seems to reinforce what
I had thought anyway. If anyone else wants to do it proper, that
would be great : ) For now though I think:

literacy = Chance to learn spell.
Le stat = How many castings gained per reading.
exp. level = Little if anything, at least for wizzies.
class = Chance to learn spell. Chance to avoid penalties.
concentration = If anything, chance to learn spell.