[slashem] No advance in dagger skill while fighting with Serpent's tongue?

[Janis Papanagnou]

In my Slashem game I want to advance my dagger skill since my
droven Barbarian got the powerful Serpent's Tongue[*] from his
god. But that seems not possible and I am puzzled about it.

He started with the two-handed sword and it was necessary to
advance it to Expert. Then he switched to Cleaver and advanced
that too. When he got the artifact dagger he continued with it,
eventually he got Basic in it and I seem to recall the message
that I got "more" (not "most") advanced with it.[**]

Weapon Skills
dagger [Basic]
* axe [Skilled]
two-handed sword [Expert]

Since then I slaughtered a lot, even cleared Grund's level with
that dagger, continued sacrifice orgies at an altar, but to no
avail. The step from Basic to Skilled should not be that large,
I'd say.

(I think I'll now continue throwing ordinary daggers to get my
skill advanced.) I made such an observation before, but maybe
someone can confirm that by own observation or prove me wrong.

Janis

[*] https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Serpent's_Tongue

[**] In case I misremembered the message I would have expected
a '#' marker in the Weapon Skills list at least.

[Janis Papanagnou]

[...] The step from Basic to Skilled should not be that large,
I'd say.
(I think I'll now continue throwing ordinary daggers to get my
skill advanced.)

A dozen (or so) more hits with thrown ordinary daggers provided
the '#' marker that the skill cannot be advanced further.

Janis

[Janis Papanagnou]

Post by Janis Papanagnou

[...] The step from Basic to Skilled should not be that large,
I'd say.
(I think I'll now continue throwing ordinary daggers to get my
skill advanced.)

A dozen (or so) more hits with thrown ordinary daggers provided
the '#' marker that the skill cannot be advanced further.

My current Neutral Barbarian seems to have the same issue with
the Serpent's Tongue. He is Basic in daggers and continuously
fought with that artifact weapon to enhance his proficiency;
but to no avail. - Is that probably a bug with that artifact?

I'll soon switch to an ordinary dagger, I suppose, (as my other
character did, as described upthread) to get my dagger skills
enhanced.

Janis

[Janis Papanagnou]

Post by Janis Papanagnou

Post by Janis Papanagnou

[...] The step from Basic to Skilled should not be that large,
I'd say.
(I think I'll now continue throwing ordinary daggers to get my
skill advanced.)

A dozen (or so) more hits with thrown ordinary daggers provided
the '#' marker that the skill cannot be advanced further.

My current Neutral Barbarian seems to have the same issue with
the Serpent's Tongue. He is Basic in daggers and continuously
fought with that artifact weapon to enhance his proficiency;
but to no avail. - Is that probably a bug with that artifact?
I'll soon switch to an ordinary dagger, I suppose, (as my other
character did, as described upthread) to get my dagger skills
enhanced.

Okay, I think I now know what might be going on here...

After many many more hits, like in the situation described in my
old posting, the dagger got its '#' mark. I suspect that this mark
will not be displayed until the internal proficiency counter will
reach (or even extend) its 'Expert' margin; even in cases when the
maximum proficiency can only become Skilled or even only Basic, as
in the two experienced sample cases. - At least this would explain
why one needs to train weapons "forever" before you get information
that all effort was in vain. (A very bad implementation decision,
IMO.)

So it has nothing to do with that specific artifact - I'd switched
to an ordinary +1 dagger to continue -, but it obviously works that
way also with an ordinary weapon.

This is nonetheless (based on observation) still a speculation, so
feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

Janis

[Pat Rankin]

Post by Janis Papanagnou
A dozen (or so) more hits with thrown ordinary daggers provided
the '#' marker that the skill cannot be advanced further.

In nethack, that happens when you have trained enough such
that you would be eligible for the next skill level if you were
allowed to advance that far. (If restricted, that would never
happen because you don't get any training accomplished.)
'Expert' isn't relevant unless you're already at 'skilled' and are
capped at 'skilled'.

I doubt that slash'em deliberately changed that. I don't recall
whether you're also supposed to need enough skill credits for
the hypothetical advance. If so, you might need to achieve
some level gains as well as accomplishing the training. But
switching to ordinary daggers wouldn't have overcome that.

Maybe hits which poison the target are being excluded from
conferring skill training? However, I don't see anything in the
code to support this. (I'm not sure that I have the source
code for the same version you're playing though.)

[Janis Papanagnou]

Post by Pat Rankin

Post by Janis Papanagnou
A dozen (or so) more hits with thrown ordinary daggers provided
the '#' marker that the skill cannot be advanced further.

In nethack, that happens when you have trained enough such
that you would be eligible for the next skill level if you were
allowed to advance that far. (If restricted, that would never
happen because you don't get any training accomplished.)
'Expert' isn't relevant unless you're already at 'skilled' and are
capped at 'skilled'.
I doubt that slash'em deliberately changed that. I don't recall
whether you're also supposed to need enough skill credits for
the hypothetical advance. If so, you might need to achieve
some level gains as well as accomplishing the training. But
switching to ordinary daggers wouldn't have overcome that.
Maybe hits which poison the target are being excluded from
conferring skill training? However, I don't see anything in the
code to support this. (I'm not sure that I have the source
code for the same version you're playing though.)

When I got aware that neither hitting with Serpent's Tongue
nor hitting with an ordinary weapon changed the proficiency
status or created the '#' limit mark (even after many many
hits) I continued the game in an ordinary way; two-weaponing
with the Serpent's Tongue and Vorpal Blade. At some point in
time - after two-weaponing was already at maximum the Slashem
specific implementation (here deviating from Nethack as you
pointed out in the past) - the dagger skill slot got the '#'
flag. So the impression was what I previously described. If
we look at the stages, how many hits are required to get to
the next level, it's (according to the Wiki): 0, 20, 80, 180.
While I haven't counted the individual hits I've got the
impression that the flag did not appear after (only) 80 hits.

I cannot tell whether the "poisonous weapon" factor changes
the handling (as you suspected), but it sounds reasonable
given that my usual experience with ordinary dagger skills
(with Rogues, or other dagger using roles) is that advancing
this skill appears (subjectively, granted) to happen a lot
faster.

Janis

PS: I'm playing slashem-0.0.7E7F3

[Pat Rankin]

Post by Janis Papanagnou
When I got aware that neither hitting with Serpent's Tongue
nor hitting with an ordinary weapon changed the proficiency
status or created the '#' limit mark (even after many many
hits) I continued the game in an ordinary way; two-weaponing
with the Serpent's Tongue and Vorpal Blade. [...]

When two-weaponing, each hit has a 50:50 chance to apply
training toward two-weapon or to the individual weapon (in
slash'em; nethack doesn't do things that way). So you would
need twice as many hits, on average, before the individual
weapon reached its next skill level than you would if you
just used that one weapon. Twice as many by that weapon,
that is; even more it you just observe general hits rather than
those for the specific weapon since half--probably more if
it has higher skill--would be done by the other weapon.

So if capped at basic, you would need on the order of 240
general hits to get the '#' marker for being unable to reach
skilled if you were using two-weapon combat rather than
just the weapon itself. Fewer hits overall if both weapons
used the same skill though, since a hit by either one could
perform training.

And hits need to dish out more than 1 point of damage in
order to accomplish training. So a 1..4 damage against
small, 1..3 against large dagger will do that either 75% or
67% of the time, which would raise the number of hits
needed for '#' to (4/3 or 3/2) times 240-ish. Note that
the greater-than-1 check takes place before the poison
bonus gets added and also before the artifact's double
damage gets added. However, weapon's enchantment
does get added before that check, so a +1 dagger should
deal a blow that performs training every time it hits.
Daggers you throw are probably at least +1 by mid-game
so training with them wouldn't be diluted by 1 point hits
(nor by two-weapon combat, and possibly increased by
multi-shot throwing depending on role).

I don't think you've encountered a bug, just the wimpyness
of a +0 weapon that hits for 1 HP damage and missed
opportunity for training purposes fairly often, then gets
bonuses that make it be more effective than most
weapons despite that lack of training.

Post by Janis Papanagnou
PS: I'm playing slashem-0.0.7E7F3

That's the same as the source code I've got; I didn't think
that it was the final release. Maybe I'm confused by the
version I played for a while a bunch of years ago (around
2005). That was new when I got the binaries for it (early
2004) but by the time I unpacked it and played it, at least
one newer version had already come out.

[Janis Papanagnou]

Post by Pat Rankin
When two-weaponing, each hit has a 50:50 chance to apply
training toward two-weapon or to the individual weapon (in
slash'em; nethack doesn't do things that way).

Yes, that's how I understood it already as you explained
it here quite some time ago.

Post by Pat Rankin
So you would
need twice as many hits, on average, before the individual
weapon reached its next skill level than you would if you
just used that one weapon. [...]

And therefore I trained it first with the artifact dagger
alone, then with the +1 dagger alone; neither showed that
weapon enhancement effect after many many hits.

Only after those ineffective tries I switched to two-weapon
combat, then not considering or assuming any more that there
would be any proficiency change in short term. (So I cannot
tell how long or how many hits it needed until the effect
was finally visible.)

Post by Pat Rankin
And hits need to dish out more than 1 point of damage in
order to accomplish training. So a 1..4 damage against
small, 1..3 against large dagger will do that either 75% or
67% of the time,

I knew there was some ineffectiveness limit or condition
but didn't knew what exactly it was. Thanks!

Post by Pat Rankin
which would raise the number of hits
needed for '#' to (4/3 or 3/2) times 240-ish. Note that
the greater-than-1 check takes place before the poison
bonus gets added and also before the artifact's double
damage gets added. However, weapon's enchantment
does get added before that check, so a +1 dagger should
deal a blow that performs training every time it hits.

And this is what also puzzles me; neither the artifact nor
the _enchanted_ dagger seemed to have any effect.

Post by Pat Rankin
Daggers you throw are probably at least +1 by mid-game
so training with them wouldn't be diluted by 1 point hits
(nor by two-weapon combat, and possibly increased by
multi-shot throwing depending on role).

My impression was that using daggers (thrown or melee'd)
is very effective even at +0 . I am currently playing a
doppelganger Flame Mage and he's already at Expert with
daggers. He throws +0 daggers (nothing else is available
that early in my game). But not quite comparable anyway
since the Firewall artifact he got from sacrifices is +2,
and I didn't followed too closely how the game evolved
hit-wise.

Post by Pat Rankin
I don't think you've encountered a bug, just the wimpyness
of a +0 weapon that hits for 1 HP damage and missed
opportunity for training purposes fairly often, then gets
bonuses that make it be more effective than most
weapons despite that lack of training.

Maybe. Though I use daggers often. It's now the second
time that I noticed the effect with Serpent's Tongue
(not with other artifact daggers, and not with ordinary
ones); it's common that I use daggers very effectively
inclusive enhancing them for multi-shot. - That's why I
am still unsure whether I missed something else.

Janis