Poll: preferred solution to archery woes?

[YourMum]

The only thing among regular missiles that I consider when selecting a stack to use is the amount of arrows/quarrels inside.

Yup totally. I'll pick up any bundle that's about 5 or more in case it's got a nice suffix but i ditch any standard ammo that doesn't stack with my larger bundles.

[Qui]

Interesting. Well, I don't know the code and I'm only just a student programmer anyways, so I'm sure TB and some of the folks here know this better than I do. I just thought that if the rest of the code is designed well, adding quiver mechanics wouldn't be that hard. I mean, one could look at it like a second inventory which is handled slightly differently.

First of all, it most likely isn't designed well, TB admitted as much. He was also just a student when he began ADoM. And secondly, I'd guess it more about time-consuming than hard. Handling and testing all the special cases... And then fixing all the fun new bugs... And all for nothing, because imho a quiver wouldn't solve the problem at all. Unless there was even more functionality added, like automatically adding picked up arrows to the proper quiver, etc, etc. While, unless I'm very mistaken, reducing variance is a simple matter of changing item generation rule for missiles.

[heavensblade23]

Considerably narrowing missile variety seems to be the best and easiest solution.

[Dlightfull]

I never used fletchery (never got an archer to lvl 18 yet ) but from what i know about it, it seems to me that drastically lowering the diversity of missiles will have the side effect of increasing the chances of making preffixed and affixed missiles.

Not that i would complain to have a big stack of penetrating arrows of slaiyng, but this would make archers even more overpowered, especially seeing how fletchery sets drop more often now.

[Harwin]

I never used fletchery (never got an archer to lvl 18 yet ) but from what i know about it, it seems to me that drastically lowering the diversity of missiles will have the side effect of increasing the chances of making preffixed and affixed missiles.

Not that i would complain to have a big stack of penetrating arrows of slaiyng, but this would make archers even more overpowered, especially seeing how fletchery sets drop more often now.

That seems like it would depend on the roll order. If the game first checks for prefix/affix, and then checks for +/- hit/damage(or vice versa, as long as they are 2 independent checks), then reducing the variety in hit/damage modifiers should have no effect on the frequency of slaying missiles.

A recent version already reduced the possible modifiers for slaying ammo (I think), and I don't get the impression it's changed (downward) the frequency of slaying ammo(in that I haven't seen people complain, and at least one person won with an archer) so this seems likely to not be the case.

[Blasphemous]

I agree there is no noticeable increase of slaying missiles dropping as loot. I have yet to play an archer extensively in pre22 and use fletchery but I doubt there will be any other conclusion.

[Deathwind]

Maybe there is another way to fix this: where do most of those single arrows come from? I've found they tend to be shot at me, perhaps it'd be enough to just have monsters shoot only normal missiles?

[Moeba]

Maybe there is another way to fix this: where do most of those single arrows come from? I've found they tend to be shot at me, perhaps it'd be enough to just have monsters shoot only normal missiles?

Indeed, that would already solve a lot. But changing this would be a pity, it's so nice when monsters also shoot advanced ammo occasionally.
Still, it's a good observation.

[aerol]

I wouldn't be opposed to the character having the possibility of blunting arrows provided they have the fletchery skill.

[Laukku]

Maybe there is another way to fix this: where do most of those single arrows come from? I've found they tend to be shot at me, perhaps it'd be enough to just have monsters shoot only normal missiles?

This. Make it so that any time a single missile is generated its stats are (+0, 1d6), and allow variation only when a whole stack is generated.