Bay 12 Games Forum
Dwarf Fortress => DF Adventure Mode Discussion => Topic started by: Shima on November 21, 2010, 09:48:58 am
-
I have a question about aimed attacks. Now, I get how they work and I've been using them since the day .17 came out. But I've also found that, it doesn't seem to matter what stats or skills I put points into, I still miss or get weak attacks when they do land. I prefer using swords, but I don't think it's that since I can get some good hits once in a while.
So, my question is, does anyone know a way to increase the odds of landing good attacks while aiming? Since even green attacks miss a fair amount of the time for me, and I'm left to wonder what's up with that. At this point I've basically adopted "choke the enemy then kill while you can't miss" as standard practice for all my fights, although it doesn't help against horrors or bogeymen, since you can't choke them out. Missing so much is not fun, or really even Fun since I'm not gaining anything from it. So, I figured I'd ask.
-
High Fighting Skill, High Weapon Skill, High Agility.
Have a nice day.
-
also: higher quality weapons and material, steel cuts much better than copper for example (not applicable to blunt weapons i think)
/edit: and its easier to hit someone with a masterwork longsword than woth an ordinary one (i think they give bonusses on the weapon skills)
-
It is also dependent on your enemies skill and status. If you try to hit a warlord (sometimes they appear as outlaw leaders) early in the game for example chances are good that he will counterstrike you in the face. If you manage to get him to the ground, cause him pain or other negative states it is more likely that you can hit him with a melee weapon. Simple outlaws are much easier to hit. Just make sure you only fight vs enemies that you can manage and take on the more dangerous ones when you are more skilled. Bogeyman are pretty dangerous. They don't cause much damage but they are really hard to hit for an unskilled warrior and gang up on you to scratch you to death.
-
Throw something and break a limb (or sever it by throwing greataxes) and you will find the enemy much easier to hit.
-
Sneaking up on the enemy and firing bolts at them until they notice you is also a very nice way of levelling the odds in advance :D
-
I have a question about aimed attacks. Now, I get how they work and I've been using them since the day .17 came out. But I've also found that, it doesn't seem to matter what stats or skills I put points into, I still miss or get weak attacks when they do land. I prefer using swords, but I don't think it's that since I can get some good hits once in a while.
So, my question is, does anyone know a way to increase the odds of landing good attacks while aiming? Since even green attacks miss a fair amount of the time for me, and I'm left to wonder what's up with that. At this point I've basically adopted "choke the enemy then kill while you can't miss" as standard practice for all my fights, although it doesn't help against horrors or bogeymen, since you can't choke them out. Missing so much is not fun, or really even Fun since I'm not gaining anything from it. So, I figured I'd ask.
It looks like the aiming menu gives you the unmodified chances to hit and cause damage. They are based on your skills and some random elements. Once you select an attack, it is then rolled against the target's defense which could turn your "easier strike" into an "impossible strike" and open you up to counterattacks. The damage is modified against armour/clothing etc.
The menu is a good guide as to what hits will have a greater chance of landing and doing damage but it's not a "true" indication of what a strike will do.
-
This topic has made me wonder if any of the attributes make the aimed attack menu more accurate.
I think the difficulty of hitting a relatively unharmed target is to keep fights from being an unavoidable blood-bath. It does make it hard to fight those high-skill leaders and bogeyman, though.
-
High Fighting Skill, High Weapon Skill, High Agility.
Have a nice day.
Don't forget high strength; I had an adventurer who could only land about every fifth attack, because despite her superhuman agility, high Axeman skill, and very high Fighter skill, she was trying to wield a halberd one-handed with only below-average strength
-
I don't think skill affects the sort of attacks you get that much, my one-armed knifegoblin could pretty consistently hit difficult strikes with his copper dagger. :)
-
After some more experimentation, it seems that, yes, the listed chances in the aiming menu are all screwed up, even after you select a part to strike.
The best tactic I've found based on that extra playing and what I've heard here, is to dump stats into Strength and Agility, and then every single skill point into Fighter - with just the starting knife, I've been able to consistently hit and disable or otherwise kill targets, be they bandits, night horror spouses (I one shot the one I've fought thus far in these experiments), or a castle full of those glitchy nude wrestlers. All I've been doing is aiming for the upper or lower body, regardless of how likely or well it says I'll hit, and stabbing, and it seems to hit more often than not. I'll only opportunity strike if it slashes or stabs them (The night horror died from opportunity to the head, decapitated on that first strike). I am finding that opportunities are a bit less useful than I'd like for the most part. While the attacks themselves can be useful, usually at least tearing a ligament, they tend to aim for somewhere useless. Kicking a finger doesn't do me as much good as jamming a knife into someone's chest, when it comes right down to it.
-
High Fighting Skill, High Weapon Skill, High Agility.
Have a nice day.
Don't forget high strength; I had an adventurer who could only land about every fifth attack, because despite her superhuman agility, high Axeman skill, and very high Fighter skill, she was trying to wield a halberd one-handed with only below-average strength
Hmm... So perhaps smaller weapons might be better for low strength characters?
-
Also related to beating opponents better than you, esp early on-
if your mass/size and/or muscle are bigger'n your foe, but you can't get through his guard and he's slicing you up (let's say, for instance, a starting min/maxed swordsman peasant vs. a goblin outlaw boss)--
KNOCK HIM THE FUCK DOWN.
Set your default combat settings (Shift-C) to 'charge' and you may well knock him/her down with your strike even if it blocks.
Also re: grabbing/choking out--- don't have a solid grip on that throat? what's that? he keeps stabbing you, and that's bad?
1. grab the weapon. don't drop it. throw it away or back up and hurl it at him. in 31.18, enemies won't pick it up unless they happens to be in the same square.
Now let's see how his punching skill is.
2. grab his head with one of your hands and gouge his eyes out. after I blind an opponent, i can disengage and sneak back up on him from behind and choke him out there. then kick to the head til' dead. they don't come after you if blind and you get a few steps away.
Thanks everybody! I'll be here all night.
-
Hmm... So perhaps smaller weapons might be better for low strength characters?
That's a valid point, but it's reasonable to assume that low strength will increase the likelihood of your hits deflecting or glancing off regardless of weapon size.
-
Hmm... So perhaps smaller weapons might be better for low strength characters?
My understanding is that you get a pretty harsh penalty if you're trying to wield a 2h weapon in one hand, and this penalty can be negated by high enough strength. So it shouldn't matter whether you're using a longsword or a shortsword or a dagger, as long as it's a weapon intended for one hand, you shouldn't be getting a penalty no matter your strength; the penalty just comes into play when you try to wield that two-hand sword in one hand.
-
Keep in mind that positioning is a big factor. For the early fights against tough enemies (night creatures bandit leaders), always try to let your companions get in first and then charge them from behind. Once they are knocked down. Pretty much everything else has been said already i guess. You can level up fighter and weapon skills by making a macro to slap enemies that aren't dangerous anymore and preferably immune to pain with the flat side of your sword.
One thing that seems to be a factor too for me is the different targets might have inherent hit chance modifiers. In my experience hits to the upper/lower body are always easier than hits to the limbs (this would explain the perceived bogeyman lower body vulnerability - they are hard to hit so the only thing that can be hit reliably is the lower body).
-
There are definitely lots of factors that aren't considered at all by the difficult/easy/square/glancing/etc strikes; you basically have to know your enemy.
You may be able to frequently land tricky or even difficult strikes on weak enough enemies (good to know for quickly decapitating hordes of kobolds and such), whereas some enemies have such high dodge you learn not to waste time on anything worse than "easy."
Armor matters a great deal, even a "very square" strike will often harmlessly glance off a decent helm, but if limbs aren't armored you can lop them off even with a "can't quite connect" attack, so be sure to examine humanoids and check for armor.
Large enemies shrug off most attacks no matter how squarely you hit them, the fat and muscle blocks most of it; aim for the head if you can and upper/lower body if not, hacking at their limbs just doesn't seem to do anything. Whereas normal-sized enemies can be significantly weakened by severing a limb, if you get a good shot do so and it'll make future attacks on the body/head easier to land.
Take any opportunity strike you ever get against the head; I've even seen an opportunity scratch hit the brain and instantly kill.
Otherwise I ignore most opportunity strikes (an opportunity kick or punch on the body/limb just doesn't seem to hurt as much as a regular axe slash, and nothing you do to an opponent's toe will have much effect) unless I just can't hit with anything and get desperate.
Anyway those are my observations/best guesses, I may be wrong; as I said, the UI just isn't taking most of these things into account, you mostly learn by trial and error death Fun.