Considering producing Crawl variant
Erik Piper
having mulled over the recent discussion on missile weapons in Crawl a lot,
I've started thinking about producing a variant that heavily involves heavy
changes to them. It's a pretty bold thought, since I'm not really a
programmer, but it's a little easier to modify someone else's code than to
write one's own.
Here's the design document so far. It's pretty disorganized; sorry.
Bowcrawl
Changes
- Bows and Crossbows become 2-handed (not so bad for Centaurs, since they
suck with shields anyway)
- Rods become 1-handed (no great boost to Spriggans, since they suck with
shields anyway, but provides a strong ranged option for shield-bearing
characters to replace missile weapons).
- Rods become hungering (to make up for being 1-handed); hungering is
countered by intelligence*evocations as is the case with spells and
intelligence*spellcasting at present.
- Spriggans gain the same metabolism bonus as halflings (to make up for the
rod hungering). Alternatively, their INT/evocations skills are set so as to
avoid hungering problems.
- Ammo frequency in the dungeon is increased slightly (to the detriment of
orcish clubs :-P)
- Missile weapons get heavy penalties at close range (exceptions?)
- The role of strength in the use of bows is reduced
- Missile god
- Proposed name is Mertisa (yes, this is an anagram of Artemis)
- Possible powers - will need to cull out half of these
- Swiftness
- Blink
- Teleport Control
- Healing
- Haste
- Create ammo
- Brand bow
- Randomly reacting to missile fire by casting deflect missiles
- Likes
- The use of missile weapons while praying
- The slaying of monsters while praying
- Dislikes
- The use of melee weapons while praying
- The use of... Evocations? Conjurations? Stimulants? (The latter already
has existing, unused hooks in the code.)
- Piety decreases with time
- Zin is removed from the game; "good" Priests are moved to the Shining One
- Missile weapons become usable while berserking
- Maybe: 1 class is removed from the game and replaced with the Ranger, a
variant of the Hunter who starts out worshipping either the Hunter god or 1
other (Okawaru? Elyvilon? Trog?).
Thoughts:
The idea is to make roleplaying a hunter more feasible, without giving
missile weapons so much power that they dominate the game and players'
choices. I think the right balance will be the one where the casual missile
weapon user is a little better off than before, and the dedicated missile
weapon user is pretty much required to worship Mertisa or still face some
pretty large ammo problems (thus "Create Ammo"). As I sit here thinking about
this, Create Ammo could lead to some exploits such as starting with Mertisa,
creating lots of ammo, then switching gods; if there is some way to create an
item with temporary duration, this would be ideal.
Erik
Lauri Vallo
>Hi all,
Lo
>having mulled over the recent discussion on missile weapons in Crawl a lot,
>I've started thinking about producing a variant that heavily involves heavy
>changes to them. It's a pretty bold thought, since I'm not really a
>programmer, but it's a little easier to modify someone else's code than to
>write one's own.
My opinion:
Crossbows and bows should be combined to Bows.
The problem is.. if we are aiming at having someone use only bows for
most of the game there should be enough ammo. Or some way to survive
without going for weapons, gods or heavy magic.
One idea would be magical bolts when you run out of ammunition. Scaled
by your missile skill and use up heavy (3+) mana.
Not many will play if it's seperate from the main game. So you should
poke Brent with a heavy stick.... Everyone should poke him. He needs a
timeline and more support!13134 4h6ug46s3 6a34n6d2 l14u21v51!
But if that attempt is abandoned, then maybe. But even then these
things need to be discussed by all, and heavily playtested and at some
points backtracked.
>Bowcrawl
>
>Changes
>
>- Bows and Crossbows become 2-handed (not so bad for Centaurs, since they
>suck with shields anyway)
Hmhmhrm.
>- Rods become 1-handed (no great boost to Spriggans, since they suck with
>shields anyway, but provides a strong ranged option for shield-bearing
>characters to replace missile weapons).
Hrrm.
I guess things will work with these two changes. I don't see a big
reason for the changes, I don't see a reason why not.
>- Rods become hungering (to make up for being 1-handed); hungering is
>countered by intelligence*evocations as is the case with spells and
>intelligence*spellcasting at present.
I guess it isn't too bad. Warriors don't have a use for food anyway.
>- Spriggans gain the same metabolism bonus as halflings (to make up for the
>rod hungering). Alternatively, their INT/evocations skills are set so as to
>avoid hungering problems.
Sounds fishy. Halflings are too weak already.
[snip things and god info]
>- Zin is removed from the game; "good" Priests are moved to the Shining One
I'm a little hestitant. Why not just add one more? It's nice to have
options.
>- Missile weapons become usable while berserking
>- Maybe: 1 class is removed from the game and replaced with the Ranger, a
>variant of the Hunter who starts out worshipping either the Hunter god or 1
>other (Okawaru? Elyvilon? Trog?).
Just have it ask for (possible) religion when you choose Hunter.
>Thoughts:
>The idea is to make roleplaying a hunter more feasible, without giving
>missile weapons so much power that they dominate the game and players'
>choices. I think the right balance will be the one where the casual missile
>weapon user is a little better off than before, and the dedicated missile
>weapon user is pretty much required to worship Mertisa or still face some
>pretty large ammo problems (thus "Create Ammo").
I don't like it that you would have to have this god, or it being so
much an all in one package.
>As I sit here thinking about
>this, Create Ammo could lead to some exploits such as starting with Mertisa,
>creating lots of ammo, then switching gods; if there is some way to create an
>item with temporary duration, this would be ideal.
This can by fixed by having her drop ammo after some intervals.
ru
> having mulled over the recent discussion on missile weapons in Crawl a lot,
> I've started thinking about producing a variant that heavily involves heavy
> changes to them. It's a pretty bold thought, since I'm not really a
> programmer, but it's a little easier to modify someone else's code than to
> write one's own.
spooky! i was considering working on an archery patch last night..
but i really wouldn't want to fork the game: it would just be a patch
> - Bows and Crossbows become 2-handed (not so bad for Centaurs, since they
> suck with shields anyway)
agree.
> - Rods become 1-handed (no great boost to Spriggans, since they suck with
> shields anyway, but provides a strong ranged option for shield-bearing
> characters to replace missile weapons).
> - Rods become hungering (to make up for being 1-handed); hungering is
> countered by intelligence*evocations as is the case with spells and
> intelligence*spellcasting at present.
> - Spriggans gain the same metabolism bonus as halflings (to make up for the
> rod hungering). Alternatively, their INT/evocations skills are set so as to
> avoid hungering problems.
disagree to all of these: the don't involve bows or archery. any
extraneous changes outside the realm of archery will make people less
likely to take it up.
> - Ammo frequency in the dungeon is increased slightly (to the detriment of
> orcish clubs :-P)
and stack size should increase, and get more ammo for untrapping.
> - Missile weapons get heavy penalties at close range (exceptions?)
> - The role of strength in the use of bows is reduced
less fussed about this; but the bows could be returned to using normal
enchantment bonuses.
> - Missile god
i contemplated this.. but thought it would be hard to do. i'm not sure
removing an existing god would be acceptable..
> - Proposed name is Mertisa (yes, this is an anagram of Artemis)
> - Possible powers - will need to cull out half of these
yes..
i would try and think of things more hunt-related, rather than
things which are just useful.
> - Likes
> - The use of missile weapons while praying
> - The slaying of monsters while praying
i would combine these into "slaying with missiles" - getting piety
merely for shooting is too good.
> - Dislikes
> - The use of melee weapons while praying
> - The use of... Evocations? Conjurations? Stimulants?
just conjurations, i'd say, though i'd be nervous abaout any
spellcasting penalty. evocations is just too useful to rule out.
> - Missile weapons become usable while berserking
i don't see why. you need a steady hand.. i don't think that berserking
being a penalty is a bad thing.
> - Maybe: 1 class is removed from the game and replaced with the Ranger, a
> variant of the Hunter who starts out worshipping either the Hunter god or 1
> other (Okawaru? Elyvilon? Trog?).
again, i don't see what benefit it brings. hunter covers the class
perfectly IMO and i think it's fine to make people wait to get to the
temple. gives more variety as well.
i would also add:
- spriggan hunter (hand crossbow)
- new items:
- war bow
- arbalest (aka heavy crossbow)
(this will be mildly tricky as damage is currently based on the
missile, not the launcher, but i'm sure it's do-able. neither
would be usable by small species)
- more bow brands
- remove the anti-laucher code in god gifts and aquirement.
> Thoughts:
> The idea is to make roleplaying a hunter more feasible, without giving
> missile weapons so much power that they dominate the game and players'
> choices.
agree, more or less.
>I think the right balance will be the one where the casual missile
> weapon user is a little better off than before, and the dedicated missile
> weapon user is pretty much required to worship Mertisa or still face some
> pretty large ammo problems (thus "Create Ammo").
hmmm.. i'm not sure about requiring someone to worship a particular
god.. shooting things is not a really a religious occupation,
unlike healer, paladdin, necromancer (so to speak). i'd have problems
with suspension of disbelief.
--
ru
Erik Piper
> > Hi all,
>
> Lo
Thanks for answering; I want all the feedback I can get if I'm actually to go
into this.
>
> > having mulled over the recent discussion on missile weapons in Crawl a
> > lot, I've started thinking about producing a variant that heavily
> > involves heavy changes to them. It's a pretty bold thought, since I'm not
> > really a programmer, but it's a little easier to modify someone else's
> > code than to write one's own.
>
> My opinion:
> Crossbows and bows should be combined to Bows.
I'm a little hesitant... It's nice to have options. :-)
> The problem is.. if we are aiming at having someone use only bows for
> most of the game there should be enough ammo.
Indeed.
> Or some way to survive without going for weapons, gods or heavy magic.
Well, if you're choosing to use only missile weapons, there's not much to
discuss here. Other than providing more ammo, the only other things I can
think of besides increasing the ammo supply for the serious missile
specialist is to increase the role of the Throwing skill and decrease the
roles of the individual skills, or increase the ammo recycle rates. Actually,
both of these are interesting ideas, but they both have faults of their own.
Hmm... yet another idea would be fletchery, but there would have to be
something about it that makes it not a choice for a non-specialist (see next
section).
> One idea would be magical bolts when you run out of ammunition. Scaled
> by your missile skill and use up heavy (3+) mana.
Good idea, but... not magical, divine. There's a gameplay reason for this
insistence on an archer god: I've seen games where archery is strong for
everybody, and it's not pretty. Archery should be strong for those who decide
to be archery specialists, and have costs. Attaching it to a god solves the
"archery should be a dedicated choice" problem nicely.
But otherwise... magical bolts as a low- or no-piety invocation would be a
fairly nice solution to the "mummy archer" headache I have in my mind. (Yes,
you could just have the god provide permanent ammo and make this god
inaccessible to evil races, but a) I see no reason to ban ghouls and
demonspawn access to this god, b) so far it's themed as a "neutral" god, not
a "good" one, and c) not only mummies could abuse the creation of permanent
ammo.)
Like Berserk Rage, this could be an invocation that does not train
invocations. Berserk Rage *might* also not improve with rising invocations,
which would fit with your theme of this being foremost a missile specialist,
not an invocations specialist ("survive without gods"... OK, you put it
stronger than that, but I don't really want to go that far.)
> Not many will play if it's seperate from the main game. So you should
> poke Brent with a heavy stick.... Everyone should poke him. He needs a
> timeline and more support!13134 4h6ug46s3 6a34n6d2 l14u21v51!
I've seen Mark Mackey magically appear upon my mentioning his name more often
than Brent. Now, as far as I can tell, what Brent has done with the code
during his reign over it is fantastic. But he just hasn't been actively doing
maintaining for a long time. That's his prerogative. (It would perhaps be
better if he passed on the scepter, but that's his decision to make, and
needs someone willing and able to accept it; I'd be willing but not able, and
can't rightly volunteer anyone else.)
I certainly understand the risk of interest in the variant being low; that's
why I want to make sure it's a) really great ;-) and b) to the liking of, at
least, anyone who speaks up about my proposals.
Part of my optimism stems from the fact that there is a history in the
Roguelike world of variants getting some serious gameplay: Angband is a Moria
variant; Zangband/PernAngband were Angband variants, ToME is an Angband
variant... and meanwhile, Slash'Em is a Nethack variant; all have sizable
communities, and some have even surpassed their forbearers.
> But if that attempt is abandoned, then maybe. But even then these
> things need to be discussed by all,
That's why I'm posting this.
> and heavily playtested
Oh man you bet.
> and at some points backtracked.
??
> > Bowcrawl
> >
> > Changes
> >
> > - Bows and Crossbows become 2-handed (not so bad for Centaurs, since they
> > suck with shields anyway)
>
> Hmhmhrm.
You want some cold medicine?
Seek and ru protested recently, "Why in the hell are bows 1-handed?" I weakly
defended the 1-handed implementation, but the truth is, they were and are
right. Sure, realism isn't everything, but when realism can be gained without
hurting the gameplay, why not? If bows and crossbows are strengthened in
other respects, then the balance, and thus I should hope gameplay, is
maintained as long as those other respects aren't unfun.
Realism means more immersion means enjoying the internal vision of one's
alter ego marching around massacring things with bows/crossbows/(slings?
*shudder*) without the nagging question of "How the hell am I able to bear a
shield while doing this??"
> > - Rods become 1-handed (no great boost to Spriggans, since they suck with
> > shields anyway, but provides a strong ranged option for shield-bearing
> > characters to replace missile weapons).
>
> Hrrm.
> I guess things will work with these two changes. I don't see a big
> reason for the changes, I don't see a reason why not.
The first change was explained above. The second change maintains the
existence of a 1-handed non-conjuring, non-invocations ranged option in
Crawl, which I propose is a Good Thing.
> > - Rods become hungering (to make up for being 1-handed); hungering is
> > countered by intelligence*evocations as is the case with spells and
> > intelligence*spellcasting at present.
>
> I guess it isn't too bad. Warriors don't have a use for food anyway.
Hrrrrm... haven't played berserkers much, have you? :-)))
So it could be said the above has a flaw -- you can forget about using your
Rod of Destruction with a Troll, unless it's a really smart Troll. Unless
that doesn't matter, I still need to think this over. Some alternative for a
downgrade to Rods would be nice. Maybe they could be hand-and-a-half :-P
> > - Spriggans gain the same metabolism bonus as halflings (to make up for
> > the rod hungering). Alternatively, their INT/evocations skills are set so
> > as to avoid hungering problems.
>
> Sounds fishy. Halflings are too weak already.
I'm afraid I don't understand you.
> [snip things and god info]
>
> > - Zin is removed from the game; "good" Priests are moved to the Shining
> > One
>
> I'm a little hestitant. Why not just add one more? It's nice to have
> options.
It would probably mean extra work for me (finding and fixing all the things
affected by messing with the god count), and mess up the aesthetics of the
Ecumenical Temple and of the "temple hall" special dungeon feature. :-P My
thought was that zin and TSO are so similar that most players will hardly
notice the difference. But OK, your vote is recorded. :-)
> > - Missile weapons become usable while berserking
> > - Maybe: 1 class is removed from the game and replaced with the Ranger, a
> > variant of the Hunter who starts out worshipping either the Hunter god or
> > 1 other (Okawaru? Elyvilon? Trog?).
>
> Just have it ask for (possible) religion when you choose Hunter.
Good idea. Looks like the code for priests, etc. will be fairly easy to
recycle, even if there are more than two choices. Now the only question is,
which ones, and how does it affect the player's start?
> > Thoughts:
> > The idea is to make roleplaying a hunter more feasible, without giving
> > missile weapons so much power that they dominate the game and players'
> > choices. I think the right balance will be the one where the casual
> > missile weapon user is a little better off than before, and the dedicated
> > missile weapon user is pretty much required to worship Mertisa or still
> > face some pretty large ammo problems (thus "Create Ammo").
>
> I don't like it that you would have to have this god, or it being so
> much an all in one package.
There are already hunter YAVPs out there, with no such god in place, so I
doubt you would have to have this god to play a hunter; you'd just have to
have this god to roleplay a hunter (unless someone comes up with a convincing
proposal for an alternative solution to the "everybody's an archer" problem
mentioned above).
> > As I sit here thinking about
> > this, Create Ammo could lead to some exploits such as starting with
> > Mertisa, creating lots of ammo, then switching gods; if there is some way
> > to create an item with temporary duration, this would be ideal.
>
> This can by fixed by having her drop ammo after some intervals.
...which you then pick up and, having milked her for what she's worth, use
while worshipping some other god. Unless, of course, her wrath is some pretty
serious mojo... hmmm...
Erik
Lauri Vallo
>bork bork bork Lauri Vallo bork 2:18:14 PM bork 2/3/2005 bork bork:
>> Or some way to survive without going for weapons, gods or heavy magic.
>
>Well, if you're choosing to use only missile weapons, there's not much to
>discuss here. Other than providing more ammo, the only other things I can
>think of besides increasing the ammo supply for the serious missile
>specialist is to increase the role of the Throwing skill and decrease the
>roles of the individual skills, or increase the ammo recycle rates. Actually,
>both of these are interesting ideas, but they both have faults of their own.
>Hmm... yet another idea would be fletchery, but there would have to be
>something about it that makes it not a choice for a non-specialist (see next
>section).
Making throwing better is good.
I don't want ammo to be available for everything, but you should get a
feeling that the bow is your strongest weapon, and have something else
for backup.
>> One idea would be magical bolts when you run out of ammunition. Scaled
>> by your missile skill and use up heavy (3+) mana.
>
>Good idea, but... not magical, divine. There's a gameplay reason for this
>insistence on an archer god: I've seen games where archery is strong for
>everybody, and it's not pretty. Archery should be strong for those who decide
>to be archery specialists, and have costs. Attaching it to a god solves the
>"archery should be a dedicated choice" problem nicely.
I think the archery skill is almost enough.
>Like Berserk Rage, this could be an invocation that does not train
>invocations. Berserk Rage *might* also not improve with rising invocations,
>which would fit with your theme of this being foremost a missile specialist,
>not an invocations specialist ("survive without gods"... OK, you put it
>stronger than that, but I don't really want to go that far.)
Mostly without gods so that archery gets the bulk of training. Makhleb
could be seen as a good backup, with the bolts spells you get.
>Seek and ru protested recently, "Why in the hell are bows 1-handed?" I weakly
>defended the 1-handed implementation, but the truth is, they were and are
>right. Sure, realism isn't everything, but when realism can be gained without
>hurting the gameplay, why not? If bows and crossbows are strengthened in
>other respects, then the balance, and thus I should hope gameplay, is
>maintained as long as those other respects aren't unfun.
I didn't see it as a protest, but they were just wondering.
As it is archery isn't good so 1-handedness is fair.
I don't care about realism. Either way can work.
>> > - Rods become 1-handed (no great boost to Spriggans, since they suck with
>> > shields anyway, but provides a strong ranged option for shield-bearing
>> > characters to replace missile weapons).
>>
>> Hrrm.
>> I guess things will work with these two changes. I don't see a big
>> reason for the changes, I don't see a reason why not.
>
>The first change was explained above. The second change maintains the
>existence of a 1-handed non-conjuring, non-invocations ranged option in
>Crawl, which I propose is a Good Thing.
Hmmm. sounds weak: bows two handed because of realism - because of
that, rods should be one handed so shields get a use.
Seems like a lot of hassle for the bow realism. More reasons for the
first change are needed.
I am not saying is is unbalanced though. How could I know?
>> > - Rods become hungering (to make up for being 1-handed); hungering is
>> > countered by intelligence*evocations as is the case with spells and
>> > intelligence*spellcasting at present.
>>
>> I guess it isn't too bad. Warriors don't have a use for food anyway.
>
>Hrrrrm... haven't played berserkers much, have you? :-)))
I have, but I never found it useful because of the risk after it. I
really think there is food for berserking plus those rods.
>> > - Spriggans gain the same metabolism bonus as halflings (to make up for
>> > the rod hungering). Alternatively, their INT/evocations skills are set so
>> > as to avoid hungering problems.
>>
>> Sounds fishy. Halflings are too weak already.
>
>I'm afraid I don't understand you.
Well, it just seems you aren't looking at the whole picture ..that you
like to play spriggans and boost them because of that.
No need to get overly defensive now!
>> > Thoughts:
>> > The idea is to make roleplaying a hunter more feasible, without giving
>> > missile weapons so much power that they dominate the game and players'
>> > choices. I think the right balance will be the one where the casual
>> > missile weapon user is a little better off than before, and the dedicated
>> > missile weapon user is pretty much required to worship Mertisa or still
>> > face some pretty large ammo problems (thus "Create Ammo").
>>
>> I don't like it that you would have to have this god, or it being so
>> much an all in one package.
>
>There are already hunter YAVPs out there, with no such god in place, so I
>doubt you would have to have this god to play a hunter; you'd just have to
>have this god to roleplay a hunter (unless someone comes up with a convincing
>proposal for an alternative solution to the "everybody's an archer" problem
>mentioned above).
Of course you would not need to have it, but it would be the obvious
choice. There shouldn't be a clearly obvious choice. This way normal
people (semi-munchkins) can try the others when bored.
>>This can by fixed by having her drop ammo after some intervals.
>>
>...which you then pick up and, having milked her for what she's worth, use
>while worshipping some other god. Unless, of course, her wrath is some pretty
>serious mojo... hmmm...
Hmmm. I thought milking is only feasible with mummies.
All the others will run out of food so they need to explore and miss
out on other godly thingies.
You would need a certain amount of piety and it would drop with each
drop while the rain outside the dungeon drops. The usual way.
Erik Piper
> Erik Piper wrote:
[...]
> > - Rods become 1-handed (no great boost to Spriggans, since they suck with
> > shields anyway, but provides a strong ranged option for shield-bearing
> > characters to replace missile weapons).
> > - Rods become hungering (to make up for being 1-handed); hungering is
> > countered by intelligence*evocations as is the case with spells and
> > intelligence*spellcasting at present.
> > - Spriggans gain the same metabolism bonus as halflings (to make up for
> > the rod hungering). Alternatively, their INT/evocations skills are set so
> > as to avoid hungering problems.
>
> disagree to all of these: the don't involve bows or archery. any
> extraneous changes outside the realm of archery will make people less
> likely to take it up.
Ah, but they do. Let's look at the ranged game as it stands:
- Conjurerlikes conjure and do little short-ranged work
- Summonerlikes summon and do little short-ranged work
- Hunterlikes shoot, but are forced to melee alla time; they can use shields
effectively
- Berserkerlikes mostly melee; with their speed when berserk, they act as
"guided missiles" when a ranged attack is needed
- Evoking fighters melee and evoke when a ranged attack is needed; they
cannot use shields effectively
- Invoking fighters melee and invoke when a ranged attack is needed; they can
use shields effectively
- Conjuring fighters melee and conjure when a ranged attack is needed; if
they avoid staves, they can use shields effectively.
(All of the "use shields effectively" lines above are "weapon permitting," of
course.)
If we make launchers 2-handed (perhaps with the exception of the poor
beleaguered Slings, which I can, if straining my imagination a bit, imagine
as 1-handed), then that no longer leaves races with crappy conjuring (which
tend to also have good Shields skill) a true ranged option involving a shield
other than Invocations, and only Makhleb really offers cheap and decent
ranged invocations. Unless, of course, we make something else 1-handed... and
rods present themselves here.
Options are good.
> > - Ammo frequency in the dungeon is increased slightly (to the detriment of
> > orcish clubs :-P)
>
> and stack size should increase, and get more ammo for untrapping.
All fine. What absolutely must go is the "trap triggering dance," which is
just anathema to the spirit of Crawl.
> > - Missile weapons get heavy penalties at close range (exceptions?)
> > - The role of strength in the use of bows is reduced
>
> less fussed about this; but the bows could be returned to using normal
> enchantment bonuses.
Basically what I meant.
> > - Missile god
>
> i contemplated this.. but thought it would be hard to do. i'm not sure
> removing an existing god would be acceptable..
I don't really think so, at least if an existing god is removed. The
sentiment I've seen in the past is that TSO and Zin are quite similar, and so
there was room to snip in that spot.
Fighters have a god, totally ape-poop Fighter (Berserkers) have a god;
invocationists have a god; munchkinists have a god; Conjurers have a god;
randomness lovers have a god; Summoners have a god; masochists have a god;
why not finally give Hunters a god too?
> > - Proposed name is Mertisa (yes, this is an anagram of Artemis)
> > - Possible powers - will need to cull out half of these
>
> yes..
> i would try and think of things more hunt-related, rather than
> things which are just useful.
What I want is "useful for balance", but you're right, useful for roleplaying
is important too. Well, a hunter really does want the means of hunting, so
ammo creation fits that. Blink isn't hunt-related (I don't really associate
teleportation in my mind with hunting :-)), but Swiftness and Haste certainly
are. Deflect missiles isn't, but deflecting blows a la Okawaru is, as is
healing; however, it would be cooler to have new stuff than recycle old
stuff. Maybe Paralyze? ("Mertisa's siren song stops the Hydra in its
tracks.") Corona? ("Mertisa guides your eyesight. You see the Spiny Frog more
clearly now.")
> > - Likes
> > - The use of missile weapons while praying
> > - The slaying of monsters while praying
>
> i would combine these into "slaying with missiles"
I thought of that originally, but the dislike of using melee weapons while
praying means that this already more or less means "slaying with missiles,"
and it would be one less thing to code.
> - getting piety merely for shooting is too good.
Unlike, say, getting piety merely for spellcasting? (OK, OK, some would say
that's too good as well...)
Hmm, I think there will have to be a lot of *fire* involved in the wrath of
Mertisa, for the "benefit" of a certain race...
> > - Dislikes
> > - The use of melee weapons while praying
> > - The use of... Evocations? Conjurations? Stimulants?
>
> just conjurations, i'd say, though i'd be nervous abaout any
> spellcasting penalty. evocations is just too useful to rule out.
The thought was a roleplaying one: Mertisa is jealous of other ways of doing
ranged damage. OK, Conjurations it is.
> > - Missile weapons become usable while berserking
>
> i don't see why. you need a steady hand.. i don't think that berserking
> being a penalty is a bad thing.
The notion was to balance out the other penalties being placed on missile
weapons. But OK, this can be balanced out in other ways as well.
> > - Maybe: 1 class is removed from the game and replaced with the Ranger, a
> > variant of the Hunter who starts out worshipping either the Hunter god or
> > 1 other (Okawaru? Elyvilon? Trog?).
>
> again, i don't see what benefit it brings.
What benefit do Berserkers, Priests, Paladins, Chaos Knights, and Death
Knights bring over allowing people only to play Fighters, and wait until the
Temple to choose? A lot, I'd say.
I like Lauri's suggestion of simply allowing a choice of a god or two
(including No God) when starting a Hunter. There's a precedent in Death
Knights -- they can take Necromancy or Yrsadfafdsmul.
> hunter covers the class perfectly IMO and i think it's fine to make people
> wait to get to the temple. gives more variety as well.
I'd say it gives less: "you must wait until the temple" vs. "you can wait
until the temple, or have this or that fairly-appropriate god from the start."
> i would also add:
>
> - spriggan hunter (hand crossbow)
Sounds fine.
> - new items:
> - war bow
> - arbalest (aka heavy crossbow)
I'm not much for itemitis; I kind of like the "sparing" feeling in Crawl. But
OK, there's still room to grow. What did you have in mind for these?
> (this will be mildly tricky as damage is currently based on the
> missile, not the launcher, but i'm sure it's do-able. neither
> would be usable by small species)
Some of the other changes I'm considering will probably be a lot harder to
program than this.
>
> - more bow brands
More launcher brands in general, how 'bout? Besides recycling the existing
brands from melee weapons, we could add for Mertisa's sake a brand of Beast
Slaying, which would hit the Hunter role perfectly; you or Lauri (too hurried
to look now) mentioned a Branding power, and this would fit perfectly.
> - remove the anti-laucher code in god gifts and acquirement.
May be a PITA, but yeah, that makes perfect sense.
> > Thoughts:
> > The idea is to make roleplaying a hunter more feasible, without giving
> > missile weapons so much power that they dominate the game and players'
> > choices.
>
> agree, more or less.
>
> > I think the right balance will be the one where the casual missile
> > weapon user is a little better off than before, and the dedicated missile
> > weapon user is pretty much required to worship Mertisa or still face some
> > pretty large ammo problems (thus "Create Ammo").
>
> hmmm.. i'm not sure about requiring someone to worship a particular
> god.. shooting things is not a really a religious occupation,
> unlike healer, paladdin, necromancer (so to speak). i'd have problems
> with suspension of disbelief.
Is berserking a religious occupation? Berserkers tend to be Troglodytes. Is
conjuring? Conjurers tend to be Vehumites. And hunters in Bowcrawl would tend
to be (not have to be, just advantaged by it) Mertisans. Crawl has an
imagined culture, and imagining a Goddess of the Hunt for it is no weirder
than, say, a Goddess of the Hunt for, say....
Greece.
Erik
ru
> as 1-handed), then that no longer leaves races with crappy conjuring (which
> tend to also have good Shields skill) a true ranged option involving a shield
it's a tough life *shrug*
it's a gameplay change which will affect a lot of other characters which
are not affected by the bow-related stuff. that's why i'm not keen.
i want to alter as little as necessary, also.
>> > - Ammo frequency in the dungeon is increased slightly (to the detriment of
>> > orcish clubs :-P)
>> and stack size should increase, and get more ammo for untrapping.
> All fine. What absolutely must go is the "trap triggering dance," which is
> just anathema to the spirit of Crawl.
er.. is it? why? i don't think it is.
>> > - Missile god
>> i contemplated this.. but thought it would be hard to do. i'm not sure
>> removing an existing god would be acceptable..
> I don't really think so, at least if an existing god is removed. The
> sentiment I've seen in the past is that TSO and Zin are quite similar, and so
> there was room to snip in that spot.
like i said, i would counsel altering as little as possible.
> why not finally give Hunters a god too?
i'm all for having a god that's useful for hunters.. just not a hunter's
god. again, i guess i just wanted to alter less stuff.
> Well, a hunter really does want the means of hunting, so
> ammo creation fits that.
i did like the occasional random ammo creation idea mentioned earlier in
the thread. for extra interest would could give a small chance of
"special" ammo: ice, fire, poison etc.
> Blink isn't hunt-related (I don't really associate
> teleportation in my mind with hunting :-)), but Swiftness and Haste certainly
> are.
agree
> Deflect missiles isn't, but deflecting blows a la Okawaru is, as is
> healing;
the "X protects you from harm" you mean? yes, that would be good.
> Corona? ("Mertisa guides your eyesight. You see the Spiny Frog more
> clearly now.")
see invisible? the eyesight thing works, definitely.
detect creatures? "Mertisa shows you your prey"
> Unlike, say, getting piety merely for spellcasting? (OK, OK, some would say
> that's too good as well...)
also, you don't get much out of it for ages, and Sif has no piety-using
powers.
on the subject of making gods happy, what about sacrificing?
> I like Lauri's suggestion of simply allowing a choice of a god or two
> (including No God) when starting a Hunter. There's a precedent in Death
> Knights -- they can take Necromancy or Yrsadfafdsmul.
that i can live with.
>> - new items:
>> - war bow
>> - arbalest (aka heavy crossbow)
>
> I'm not much for itemitis; I kind of like the "sparing" feeling in Crawl. But
> OK, there's still room to grow. What did you have in mind for these?
like a double sword or executioners axes: more damage, less accuracy,
slower, maybe with a strength requirement.
they would be rare, so normally appear later in the game.
>> - more bow brands
>
> More launcher brands in general, how 'bout?
that's what i meant, sorry.
> Is berserking a religious occupation?
historically, yes ;-)
> Is conjuring? Conjurers tend to be Vehumites.
ah-ha! they would be well advised to choose vehumet, but they don't
start the game as vehumet worshippers.
> And hunters in Bowcrawl
now about "Bowcrawl".. i'd really prefer to keep this as a patch that
people can apply or not. i don't want to fork the game.
--
ru
Erik Piper
> Erik Piper wrote:
>
> > as 1-handed), then that no longer leaves races with crappy conjuring
> > (which tend to also have good Shields skill) a true ranged option
> > involving a shield
>
> it's a tough life shrug
> it's a gameplay change which will affect a lot of other characters which
> are not affected by the bow-related stuff. that's why i'm not keen.
> i want to alter as little as necessary, also.
If a change somewhere has a ripple effect somewhere else, I'd prefer to
change to deal with that ripple effect... for me, it's "necessary." If I
wanted to alter things for the fun of it, the proposed change list would look
very different indeed.
Rod users will come out about even, and shield users, who had one main
non-spellcasting choice before - a bow - now again have one main
non-spellcasting choice - a rod. Without the switch, they would lose that
option.
On the one hand I regret calling for thoughts and then pushing for something
that's resisted, but on the other hand I really think this reshuffle can
leave evocationists, shield-lovers, hunters, and overall everybody happy in
the end. I'd like to go through with it, and just pray that nobody will see
me as too stubborn.
> >> > - Ammo frequency in the dungeon is increased slightly (to the
> detriment of >> > orcish clubs :-P)
> >> and stack size should increase, and get more ammo for untrapping.
> > All fine. What absolutely must go is the "trap triggering dance," which is
> > just anathema to the spirit of Crawl.
>
> er.. is it? why? i don't think it is.
It rewards scumming - a repeated, boring, basically safe (if you know what
you're doing) action. There aren't many situations in Crawl where scumming is
rewarded. Also, it's just plain kind of silly. Trap disarming isn't, though.
So the changed traps would leave no ammo when triggered and give a
satisfactory amount of ammo when disarmed.
> >> > - Missile god
> >> i contemplated this.. but thought it would be hard to do. i'm not sure
> >> removing an existing god would be acceptable..
> > I don't really think so, at least if an existing god is removed. The
> > sentiment I've seen in the past is that TSO and Zin are quite similar,
> > and so there was room to snip in that spot.
>
> like i said, i would counsel altering as little as possible.
Sorry; I don't see limiting change just for the sake of limiting it as a goal
(though I don't mean to change for the heck of it). But having thought about
it, esthectically speaking there's room for another altar in the center of
the Temple and the mini-temples; that just leaves the programming side of
things. No point in eliminating a god if it aggravates people.
> > why not finally give Hunters a god too?
>
> i'm all for having a god that's useful for hunters.. just not a hunter's
> god. again, i guess i just wanted to alter less stuff.
I guess all I can do here is "green eggs and ham." :-)
> > Well, a hunter really does want the means of hunting, so
> > ammo creation fits that.
>
> i did like the occasional random ammo creation idea mentioned earlier in
> the thread. for extra interest would could give a small chance of
> "special" ammo: ice, fire, poison etc.
It could be dropped upon prayer, like weapons and armor are with Okawaru.
Currently those drops are set up to not consume piety (somebody mentioned
piety loss on such drops), but that would hardly be the hardest change to
make.
[...]
> > Unlike, say, getting piety merely for spellcasting? (OK, OK, some would
> > say that's too good as well...)
>
> also, you don't get much out of it for ages, and Sif has no piety-using
> powers.
Forget Spell consumes piety (FWIW). Also, SM piety decays, so you need to
maintain it to beat the decay. The proposal is for Mertisa piety to decay as
well. OTOH unlike the proposed Mertisa, SM doesn't offer any other method of
piety gain except...
> on the subject of making gods happy, what about sacrificing?
I find it boring... I like gods that just let me get on with the game (even
if I'm not playing with a pure "kill and keep moving" god at the moment), so
I'd like to add one. ;-P
[...]
>
> > Is berserking a religious occupation?
>
> historically, yes ;-)
My wife goes berserk without any divine help. Especially when I play too much
Crawl. :-)
> > Is conjuring? Conjurers tend to be Vehumites.
>
> ah-ha! they would be well advised to choose vehumet, but they don't
> start the game as vehumet worshippers.
Keep in mind that hunters wouldn't have to start the game as Mertisa
worshippers; they'd just be given the option.
I don't mind including a second alternative (e.g. fletchery, tying up enough
XP to make it not an option for hobby hunters), but that means even more
change (no problem for me, but maybe for you), unless it's *in place of*
Mertisa... but I really like the idea of a hunter-themed god, and I'd prefer
to write something that I think I would enjoy playing.
Remember, taking on Mertisa will mean not taking on the classics like Okawaru
(who's been plenty enough for hunters in the past); there WILL be trade-offs.
> > And hunters in Bowcrawl
>
> now about "Bowcrawl".. i'd really prefer to keep this as a patch that
> people can apply or not. i don't want to fork the game.
Name games I can live with, especially if it reduces resistance to the
bows/rods shuffle. :-) (The name Bowcrawl was inspired by Axecrawl, but
considering that Axecrawl is permavaporware, maybe it's not so cool after
all...)
Erik Piper
> > bork bork bork Lauri Vallo bork 2:18:14 PM bork 2/3/2005 bork bork:
>
> >> Or some way to survive without going for weapons, gods or heavy magic.
> >
> > Well, if you're choosing to use only missile weapons, there's not much to
> > discuss here. Other than providing more ammo, the only other things I can
> > think of besides increasing the ammo supply for the serious missile
> > specialist is to increase the role of the Throwing skill and decrease the
> > roles of the individual skills, or increase the ammo recycle rates.
> > Actually, both of these are interesting ideas, but they both have faults
> > of their own. Hmm... yet another idea would be fletchery, but there
> > would have to be something about it that makes it not a choice for a
> > non-specialist (see next section).
>
> Making throwing better is good.
> I don't want ammo to be available for everything, but you should get a
> feeling that the bow is your strongest weapon, and have something else
> for backup.
Yes, that's the idea. At the moment, there really isn't enough ammo to play a
hunter fully as a hunter, so I want to change the ammo flow in the variant.
Incidentally, one very radical idea that I'm enamored with but didn't mention
in the original post is tying hitpoints to the higher of Fighting and
Throwing, as is the case with magic points and Spellcasting/ Invocations/
Evocations at the moment. This would end the dilemma of Hunters having to do
melee (even if they had the ammo to avoid it) just in order to build up a
decent supply of HP. Since based on ru's comments of "allow berserking with a
bow is unwise," I'd like to use this to counterbalance the proposed
2-handedness and pointblank penalty.
> >> One idea would be magical bolts when you run out of ammunition. Scaled
> >> by your missile skill and use up heavy (3+) mana.
> >
> > Good idea, but... not magical, divine. There's a gameplay reason for this
> > insistence on an archer god: I've seen games where archery is strong for
> > everybody, and it's not pretty. Archery should be strong for those who
> > decide to be archery specialists, and have costs. Attaching it to a god
> > solves the "archery should be a dedicated choice" problem nicely.
>
> I think the archery skill is almost enough.
There are plenty enough skill points to go around in Crawl for a lot of
classes, and if Throwing suddenly gets a huge boost in strength with no
counterbalance, and if there's ammo enough for everyone, it becomes a
no-brainer choice for a semi-munchkin (in the hypothetical hugely successful
future of Bowcrawl we would see newbies on r.g.r.b ;-) posting "I keep dying"
and oldies posting "are you using missile weapons enough?", like in a certain
other newsgroup...).
> > Like Berserk Rage, this could be an invocation that does not train
> > invocations. Berserk Rage might also not improve with rising invocations,
> > which would fit with your theme of this being foremost a missile
> > specialist, not an invocations specialist ("survive without gods"... OK,
> > you put it stronger than that, but I don't really want to go that far.)
>
> Mostly without gods so that archery gets the bulk of training.
Fair enough.
> Makhleb could be seen as a good backup, with the bolts spells you get.
Yep. I'll be quite happy if there continue to be successful hunters with
other gods; I just want an option for those who want to roleplay them to the
hilt and minimize the use of other stuff, just like vehumet conjurers don't
fight or shoot much (but they channel energy a lot), berserkers don't have to
shoot or evoke terribly much or spellcast at all (but they use Trog
berserking a lot), etc.
> > Seek and ru protested recently, "Why in the hell are bows 1-handed?" I
> > weakly defended the 1-handed implementation, but the truth is, they were
> > and are right. Sure, realism isn't everything, but when realism can be
> > gained without hurting the gameplay, why not? If bows and crossbows are
> > strengthened in other respects, then the balance, and thus I should hope
> > gameplay, is maintained as long as those other respects aren't unfun.
>
> I didn't see it as a protest, but they were just wondering.
That's not the impression I got, considering ru's asides like "even if
1-handed bows are stupid," etc. But I guess the best people to ask are they
themselves.
> As it is archery isn't good so 1-handedness is fair.
Even 1-handed, they are still a bit ammo-starved for someone who wants to be
a missile specialist at the core. So 1-handedness is kind of throwing a bone.
> I don't care about realism. Either way can work.
Hopefully this way will work. :-)
> >> > - Rods become 1-handed (no great boost to Spriggans, since they suck
> > >> with shields anyway, but provides a strong ranged option for
> > >> shield-bearing characters to replace missile weapons).
> >>
> >> [Grumble]
>
> > [Mumble]
>
> Hmmm. sounds weak: bows two handed because of realism - because of
> that, rods should be one handed so shields get a use.
Why not? It's hard to imagine a world where a bow takes only 1 hand to use,
but it's equally easy (or hard) to imagine a world where you can blast
magical energy by focusing your thoughts while holding a rod in 2 hands, or 1.
> Seems like a lot of hassle for the bow realism. More reasons for the
> first change are needed.
Not for me, and I'm proposing me going and doing this stuff, so I'm the one
who would have to worry about how much hassle it is. I hope that if I do go
through with this and release it, you'll give it a try and discover the
balance is good and the fun is kept, or even increased.
> I am not saying is is unbalanced though. How could I know?
And I can't either, but hopefully by a few iterations from now it won't be.
> >> > - Rods become hungering (to make up for being 1-handed); hungering is
> >> > countered by intelligence*evocations as is the case with spells and
> >> > intelligence*spellcasting at present.
> >>
> >> I guess it isn't too bad. Warriors don't have a use for food anyway.
> >
> > Hrrrrm... haven't played berserkers much, have you? :-)))
>
> I have, but I never found it useful because of the risk after it. I
> really think there is food for berserking plus those rods.
Yeah; in the end, I'm not too worried; this can always be fine-tuned on the
run with by having a different table than spellcasting.
> >> > - Spriggans gain the same metabolism bonus as halflings (to make up for
> >> > the rod hungering). Alternatively, their INT/evocations skills are set
> so >> > as to avoid hungering problems.
> >>
> >> Sounds fishy. Halflings are too weak already.
> >
> > I'm afraid I don't understand you.
>
> Well, it just seems you aren't looking at the whole picture ..that you
> like to play spriggans and boost them because of that.
>
> No need to get overly defensive now!
I wonder where I went wrong in expressing myself. I really simply didn't
understand you; after all, I wasn't proposing any change to Halflings (well,
except perhaps keeping slings 1-handed, which would be quite a boost for them
in the new mix). As for liking to play spriggans -- there are very few races
I don't like to play, but spriggans aren't really at the top of my favorites
list (elves of all sorts are, although I'm currently running a Hill Orc).
I mentioned the boost to Spriggans because they would get nerfed if their
favorite method of ranged attack suddenly left them starving all the time.
However, thinking it over, considering that whatever system I set up should
be bearable for troll fighter-evokerss with their low INT (to avoid reducing
options), it will also fairly automatically be more than bearable for
spriggans with their high INT.
Incidentally, I quite like Halflings from a roleplaying standpoint (though as
you say, they really are really weak).
> >> > Thoughts:
> >> > [Basic philosophy of the modifications]
> >> [I don't like the heavy focus on an archer god]
> > [It wouldn't be a necessity, you know... and it solves a lot handily]
> Of course you would not need to have it, but it would be the obvious
> choice. There shouldn't be a clearly obvious choice.
Are you bothered by the clearly obvious choices for necromancers, conjurers,
summoners, pure-meleeists, and invocations-meleeists (Makhleb) at present?
> This way normal people (semi-munchkins) can try the others when bored.
I don't intend to make that infeasible.
> > > This can by fixed by having her drop ammo after some intervals.
> > >
> > ...which you then pick up and, having milked her for what she's worth, use
> > while worshipping some other god. Unless, of course, her wrath is some
> > pretty serious mojo... hmmm...
>
> Hmmm. I thought milking is only feasible with mummies.
> All the others will run out of food so they need to explore and miss
> out on other godly thingies.
You'd be surprised just how much you can afford to mill about if you have
Detect Creatures -- speaking as an unreformable munchkin (not even reformable
by Crawl, the Anti-Munchkin Roguelike). Enter level, find Wandering Food,
kill Wandering Food. No wandering food on that level? Enter level, find...
OTOH it's two votes in favor of perma-ammo drops, and here I'm not so
convinced that my original proposal or fears were wise. I'll try that path.
> You would need a certain amount of piety and it would drop with each
> drop while the rain outside the dungeon drops. The usual way.
You're definitely thinking random drops and not drops via invocation? The
usual Okawaru/Trog style "randomly drop when player prays"?
Erik
Lauri Vallo
>bork bork bork Lauri Vallo bork 6:18:28 PM bork 2/3/2005 bork bork:
>Incidentally, one very radical idea that I'm enamored with but didn't mention
>in the original post is tying hitpoints to the higher of Fighting and
>Throwing,
I also had this in mind but I'm not too sure...
Maybe only half of the fighting bonus?
Throwing raises fast and comes while using archery, unlike fighting
for casters. As you said ..you don't want everyone to have it.
>> >> > - Spriggans gain the same metabolism bonus as halflings (to make up for
>> >> > the rod hungering). Alternatively, their INT/evocations skills are set
>> >> > so as to avoid hungering problems.
>> >>
>> >> Sounds fishy. Halflings are too weak already.
[screep]
>I mentioned the boost to Spriggans because they would get nerfed if their
>favorite method of ranged attack suddenly left them starving all the time.
>However, thinking it over, considering that whatever system I set up should
>be bearable for troll fighter-evokerss with their low INT (to avoid reducing
>options), it will also fairly automatically be more than bearable for
>spriggans with their high INT.
Boosting the spriggan increases the difference between spriggan and
halflings. I don't actually see any metabolism bonus now that I look
(both have food consumption at 2), but that does not matter.
>> >> > Thoughts:
>> >> > [Basic philosophy of the modifications]
>> >> [I don't like the heavy focus on an archer god]
>> > [It wouldn't be a necessity, you know... and it solves a lot handily]
>> Of course you would not need to have it, but it would be the obvious
>> choice. There shouldn't be a clearly obvious choice.
>
>Are you bothered by the clearly obvious choices for necromancers, conjurers,
>summoners, pure-meleeists, and invocations-meleeists (Makhleb) at present?
Yes, but pure fighters and mages both have 2 fairly good choices. Yes
Trog is too close minded. Tell it to him.
>You're definitely thinking random drops and not drops via invocation? The
>usual Okawaru/Trog style "randomly drop when player prays"?
Yes, well.. random, but almost guaranteed when you have a good
standing with the god.
Paul Arthur
>If we make launchers 2-handed (perhaps with the exception of the poor
>beleaguered Slings, which I can, if straining my imagination a bit, imagine
>as 1-handed)
Ahm, slings are 1-handed. Sling != slingshot. Granted, you need some
way to get the rock into the sling, but I could see doing that with
the hand holding the shield.
Crossbows could technically be fired 1-handed (especially hand
crossbows), but would probably be impossible to load (except possibly
hand crossbows).
Erik Piper
Darn you, now you've got me looking up how slings work. This in turn led to:
www.womynsware.com/fgbodbabes.htm (warning - explicit language and ticklish
subjects...)
Erik
ru
> If a change somewhere has a ripple effect somewhere else, I'd prefer to
> change to deal with that ripple effect... for me, it's "necessary."
well, i disagree. it looks like a frivolous change to me.
> So the changed traps would leave no ammo when triggered
the missile mysteriously evaporate? i really don't see the need - i
think it's mainly catering to your own opinions, not any game-related
factor.
>> like i said, i would counsel altering as little as possible.
>
> Sorry; I don't see limiting change just for the sake of limiting it as a goal
i think you should. you're only discussing changing one small part of
the gameplay; anything outside that is really outside your remit.
>> > Well, a hunter really does want the means of hunting, so
>> > ammo creation fits that.
>> i did like the occasional random ammo creation idea mentioned earlier in
>> the thread. for extra interest would could give a small chance of
>> "special" ammo: ice, fire, poison etc.
> It could be dropped upon prayer, like weapons and armor are with Okawaru.
> Currently those drops are set up to not consume piety (somebody mentioned
> piety loss on such drops), but that would hardly be the hardest change to
> make.
why make it consume piety? just alter the frequency of the drops 'till
it's useful but not too good.
>> also, you don't get much out of it for ages, and Sif has no piety-using
>> powers.
> Forget Spell consumes piety (FWIW).
that's hardly comparable to haste! regaining piety just by shooting
would remove the only real drawback of the high level god-powers.
>> on the subject of making gods happy, what about sacrificing?
>
> I find it boring... I like gods that just let me get on with the game
i don't think that's a compelling reason, but i suppose a huntress is
not that concerned with what happens after you've shot the animal.
perhaps you should allow sacrifice at altars for that pagan ritual vibe.
(it's rarely useful, anyway)
> Keep in mind that hunters wouldn't have to start the game as Mertisa
> worshippers; they'd just be given the option.
yeah, yeah.. having slept on it, i'm warming to the god thing. just keep
an eye on realism, rather than a super-useful toolkit of abilities.
--
ru
ru
> Incidentally, one very radical idea that I'm enamored with but didn't mention
> in the original post is tying hitpoints to the higher of Fighting and
> Throwing, as is the case with magic points and Spellcasting/ Invocations/
> Evocations at the moment.
i don't think this is a good idea
> This would end the dilemma of Hunters having to do
> melee (even if they had the ammo to avoid it) just in order to build up a
> decent supply of HP.
the same applies to spellcasters..
> Since based on ru's comments of "allow berserking with a
> bow is unwise,"
just as a matter of ettiquette, don't use quoted speach unless you're
quoting me exactly. i agree with the sentiment, but i never used those
words.
>> > Seek and ru protested recently, "Why in the hell are bows 1-handed?" I
and again.
> That's not the impression I got, considering ru's asides like "even if
> 1-handed bows are stupid,"
and again. what i actually said was
"... you can wear heavy armour. (shields too, even if it is stoopid)"
> I mentioned the boost to Spriggans because they would get nerfed if their
> favorite method of ranged attack suddenly left them starving all the time.
a good reason not to change it at all, then ;-)
--
ru
Erik Piper
> > If we make launchers 2-handed (perhaps with the exception of the poor
OK... velly intellesting. Finally found a nice page on slings (had to invoke
Jahweh to do it... phooey):
http://www.christiananswers.net/dictionary/sling.html
Presumably, the sling hand can grab the slingstone from the "quiver" and pass
it to the shield hand (which is just holding a strap and thus still has the
fingers available to grab the stone), which in turn places the stone in the
sling.
Again, this is most relevant for Halflings. They seem at first sight to be
sub-par with shields, but actually, once you count all the Draconian races as
one race, their aptitude (120) is average -- most races are either a bit slow
with Shields, or a bit slow with *everything* including Shields. Slings are
also fairly kind to Kobolds and Gnomes, and these races work out pretty
similarly.
(I wonder if IRL bows are truly vastly superior to slings, or not. The site
quoted above suggests that range-wise, slings are quite good. However, just
like in Crawl, the ammo weight would surely be a disadvantage for the sling.)
Now, as for crossbows. Here again I had to look a while to find anything
useful. This page is nice:
http://depts.washington.edu/chinaciv/miltech/crossbow.htm
Looking at the illustrations of people using crossbows, I really can't
imagine them using the shield hand to help them load the crossbow.
Incidentally, several statements I saw in my browsing support the design
principle in Crawl that crossbows are easier to use for a beginner than bows
are. (They also just plain LOOK easier, and the two times I've seen "try out
a bow" booths (it's a European thing), every n00b, including me, that touched
one of the things looked like a complete fool -- it's not obvious at first
sight how to hold everything right and coordinate your movements well. But
then, I've never seen a "try out a crossbow" booth.)
Likewise -- speaking only from my browsing and not from any real-world
experience -- there is some real-world validity in having some more effect of
strength on bows than crossbows, as is currently the case. AFAIU with a bow,
you provide all the pull weight yourself, while with a crossbow, the device
itself helps out a lot (at the cost of speed). The only trouble is, any
implementation that promotes more Nemelexites out there ain't something I
like. :-) I'd assume in any case that there's a point where you have enough
strength and further strength won't help any more, and in any case, that'll
be related to the size of the bow, not the enchantment level. Probably would
work to implement that in Crawl as well (with new "war bows," if introduced,
benefitting from strength up to a higher level, but with no bow out there
getting extra benefit from munchkinish levels of strength).
Crossbows also seem to introduce a lot less fatigue during a long session,
but since there's no fatigue in Crawl, we'll just let that slide.
Hmm, it seems that in the here and now, crossbows are really controversial in
terms of crossbow hunting vs. bow hunting.
Erik
Erik Piper
> Erik Piper wrote:
> > If a change somewhere has a ripple effect somewhere else, I'd prefer to
> > change to deal with that ripple effect... for me, it's "necessary."
>
> well, i disagree. it looks like a frivolous change to me.
"I do not like green egss and ham!
I do not like them, Sam-I-am."
"You do not like them.
So you say.
Try them! Try them! ANd you may.
Try them and you may I say."
Sorry, but I really think the extra changes will make the change to bows fit
better into the game. And jeezus, it amounts to one other change in
handedness (tightly related, in my mind, to the bow change) and a tweak to
that thing to make up for it.
> > So the changed traps would leave no ammo when triggered
>
> the missile mysteriously evaporate?
There's already a precedent, in the form of (the old roguelike standard of)
missiles sometimes disappearing when fired. In any case, whoever has a reason
to go about setting traps in the dungeon hardly has a reason for them to
generate potentially infinite ammo, unless it's one of those Hollywood-style
bad guys who always leaves the hero an out. And how hard is it to load a trap
with hard-to-reuse ammo, anyway?
The other solution would be to give traps a certain amount of ammo, and
whether you trigger it or disarm it, it's only going to give that much ammo
(and probably less if you trigger it, since some of the ammo will disappear,
through the mechanism that already exists, and would be kept).
You yourself talked about realism, now let's imagine our hero walking up to
an arrow trap and triggering it as many times as pos...
Ah, forget it... just too ludicrous.
> i really don't see the need - i
> think it's mainly catering to your own opinions, not any game-related
> factor.
The game-related factor is, again, that there is very little room for
scumming in Crawl, and this is one of the exceptions.
> >> like i said, i would counsel altering as little as possible.
> >
> > Sorry; I don't see limiting change just for the sake of limiting it as a
> > goal
>
> i think you should. you're only discussing changing one small part of
> the gameplay; anything outside that is really outside your remit.
For me this all relates to that small part of the gameplay. All the things I
mention are either changes related to bows or thing necessitated in my mind,
in my admittedly provenly not so humble opinion, by those changes.
> >> > Well, a hunter really does want the means of hunting, so
> >> > ammo creation fits that.
> >> i did like the occasional random ammo creation idea mentioned earlier in
> >> the thread. for extra interest would could give a small chance of
> >> "special" ammo: ice, fire, poison etc.
> > It could be dropped upon prayer, like weapons and armor are with Okawaru.
> > Currently those drops are set up to not consume piety (somebody mentioned
> > piety loss on such drops), but that would hardly be the hardest change to
> > make.
>
> why make it consume piety? just alter the frequency of the drops 'till
> it's useful but not too good.
OK. It's all the same to me if it consumes piety (and Mertisa is that much
the stronger in other respects) or not (and Mertisa is that much the weaker
in other respects), except for the fact that not consuming piety is easier to
program (in the past, gifts consumed piety, but now they don't, so I'd have
to program that in).
> >> also, you don't get much out of it for ages, and Sif has no piety-using
> >> powers.
> > Forget Spell consumes piety (FWIW).
>
> that's hardly comparable to haste! regaining piety just by shooting
> would remove the only real drawback of the high level god-powers.
Really, I suggested it because I like it for the thematicness. What if the
level of piety decay for this god is high enough ("Mertisa is fickle") that
the end balance is about the same as if there were no piety gain for this. Or
would that feel like too much of a straitjacket? My thought is a god who's a
choice (*a* choice :-) ) for a hunter who wants to roleplay a hunter, and for
those characters it would mean no extra stress, but let me know your thoughts
here.
[...]
> perhaps you should allow sacrifice at altars for that pagan ritual vibe.
> (it's rarely useful, anyway)
Agreed, and agreed. Nice flavor stuff.
Cheers,
Erik
Erik Piper
> Erik Piper wrote:
> > Incidentally, one very radical idea that I'm enamored with but didn't
> > mention in the original post is tying hitpoints to the higher of Fighting
> > and Throwing, as is the case with magic points and Spellcasting/
> > Invocations/ Evocations at the moment.
>
> i don't think this is a good idea
>
> > This would end the dilemma of Hunters having to do
> > melee (even if they had the ammo to avoid it) just in order to build up a
> > decent supply of HP.
>
> the same applies to spellcasters..
Spellcasters have easy access to a host of methods for staying out of melee
range. Archers don't necessarily. If I penalize pointblank fire, hunters with
no melee training will still have to avoid melee range, however, but hunters
with a strong melee hobby will appreciate it.
> > Since based on ru's comments of "allow berserking with a
> > bow is unwise,"
>
> just as a matter of ettiquette, don't use quoted speach unless you're
> quoting me exactly. i agree with the sentiment, but i never used those
> words.
[similar comments to this x2]
It was the most convenient way to quote, and there was no intention to say
those were your exact words. Still, my apologies.
> > I mentioned the boost to Spriggans because they would get nerfed if their
> > favorite method of ranged attack suddenly left them starving all the time.
>
> a good reason not to change it at all, then ;-)
And a good reason to re-read the part of my comments that you snipped. ;-)
Erik
Jeff Lait
Erik Piper wrote:
> bork bork bork Paul Arthur bork 10:12:42 AM bork 2/4/2005 bork bork:
>
> > > If we make launchers 2-handed (perhaps with the exception of the
poor
> > > beleaguered Slings, which I can, if straining my imagination a
bit,
> > > imagine as 1-handed)
> >
> > Ahm, slings are 1-handed. Sling != slingshot. Granted, you need
some
> > way to get the rock into the sling, but I could see doing that with
> > the hand holding the shield.
> >
> > Crossbows could technically be fired 1-handed (especially hand
> > crossbows), but would probably be impossible to load (except
possibly
> > hand crossbows).
>
> OK... velly intellesting. Finally found a nice page on slings (had to
invoke
> Jahweh to do it... phooey):
>
> http://www.christiananswers.net/dictionary/sling.html
I'm surprised you didn't find this:
http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/nikolas.lloyd/weapons/sling.html
> (I wonder if IRL bows are truly vastly superior to slings, or not.
The site
> quoted above suggests that range-wise, slings are quite good.
However, just
> like in Crawl, the ammo weight would surely be a disadvantage for the
sling.)
The site I have quoted indicates the two are at least comparable in
strength. As for ammo. Which are you more likely to find lying on the
ground: rocks or arrows?
--
Jeff Lait
(POWDER: http://www.zincland.com/powder)
Erik Piper
> > bork bork bork Lauri Vallo bork 6:18:28 PM bork 2/3/2005 bork bork:
>
> > Incidentally, one very radical idea that I'm enamored with but didn't
> > mention in the original post is tying hitpoints to the higher of Fighting
> > and Throwing,
>
> I also had this in mind but I'm not too sure...
> Maybe only half of the fighting bonus?
>
> Throwing raises fast and comes while using archery, unlike fighting
> for casters. As you said ..you don't want everyone to have it.
OK, I'll try tying it to "highest of Fighting or Throwing/2" and then it's up
to the playtesting. IME Throwing rises at about 1/2 the speed of particular
missile weapon skills, so this approach may well get lost in the shuffle, but
we'll see.
> >> >> > - Spriggans gain the same metabolism bonus as halflings (to make up
> for >> >> > the rod hungering). Alternatively, their INT/evocations skills
> are set >> >> > so as to avoid hungering problems.
> >> >>
> >> >> Sounds fishy. Halflings are too weak already.
> [screep]
> > I mentioned the boost to Spriggans because they would get nerfed if their
> > favorite method of ranged attack suddenly left them starving all the time.
> > However, thinking it over, considering that whatever system I set up
> > should be bearable for troll fighter-evokerss with their low INT (to
> > avoid reducing options), it will also fairly automatically be more than
> > bearable for spriggans with their high INT.
>
> Boosting the spriggan increases the difference between spriggan and
> halflings. I don't actually see any metabolism bonus now that I look
> (both have food consumption at 2), but that does not matter.
Erwan to the rescue!
Hunger Rate & Satiation variation
=================================
Every turn, a certain amount is substracted from your satiation,
depending of many parameters:
Base: 3
-1 (halfling or spriggan)
[...]
So yeah, they're already the same. OK, I'll leave this as it is, especially
since, again, any table that doesn't nerf the "troll with rod" option will
hardly nerf spriggans.
> >> >> > Thoughts:
> >> >> > [Basic philosophy of the modifications]
> >> >> [I don't like the heavy focus on an archer god]
> >> > [It wouldn't be a necessity, you know... and it solves a lot handily]
> >> Of course you would not need to have it, but it would be the obvious
> >> choice. There shouldn't be a clearly obvious choice.
> >
> > Are you bothered by the clearly obvious choices for necromancers,
> > conjurers, summoners, pure-meleeists, and invocations-meleeists (Makhleb)
> > at present?
>
> Yes, but pure fighters and mages both have 2 fairly good choices.
In trying to brief, I wasn't too clear; by "pure meleeist" I meant one who
isn't interested in ranged combat ("There are no missiles, mortal. YOU are
the missile."), in which case the balance shifts heavily towards Trog.
> Yes Trog is too close minded. Tell it to him.
OT: Reading between the lines, perhaps incorrectly, it sounds like you find
Trog and Berserking a bit weak. Understandable, but... they do just fine.
When nobody's firing at you, you just fight, berserk if it's tough, and hack
at stuff until it's dead. When somebody's firing at you, you just need to
survive your approach to the enemy. Ways to survive include everything from
overall buffness and defense, to high stealth, to invisibility, to berserking
itself (you're hasted, so you're covering the distance at double speed).
Note that the amount of HP you gain at the start of berserking is just
insane, so you can sometimes get banged up right good, go berserk, get banged
up some more, and still come out at full health after your HP cap is reduced
to normal at the end of berserking.
On-topic: Hmm. I *like* Trog. He's just a rough-and-tumble kind of guy.
Really deep down he's got a heart of gold once you get past the rough
no-spellcasting exterior.
> > You're definitely thinking random drops and not drops via invocation? The
> > usual Okawaru/Trog style "randomly drop when player prays"?
>
> Yes, well.. random, but almost guaranteed when you have a good
> standing with the god.
But with a timeout (these are used for the existing gift-granting routines)
set to get the frequency right, balance-wise. OK.
Erik
Erik Piper
Heh. From the article:
"Names, symbols, and messages were often cast onto sling bullets. Sometimes
the name of the maker was on the bullet, sometimes the owner's, or the
owner's unit, sometimes his enemy. The messages are interesting. The Greeks
especially went in for these. They said things like "Take that!" and
"Megacles hit you". The messages could be quite up to the minute, since the
bullets were often cast on campaign."
The halfling slings a sling bullet at you!
You pick up the sling bullet.
There is an inscription on the sling bullet. Read it? [y/N] Y
"You die..."
You die...
Erik
ru
> The other solution would be to give traps a certain amount of ammo, and
that's a better solution IMO.
> whether you trigger it or disarm it, it's only going to give that much ammo
> (and probably less if you trigger it, since some of the ammo will disappear,
> through the mechanism that already exists, and would be kept).
[piety just for shooting]
> Really, I suggested it because I like it for the thematicness. What if the
> level of piety decay for this god is high enough ("Mertisa is fickle") that
> the end balance is about the same as if there were no piety gain for this. Or
> would that feel like too much of a straitjacket?
i would be pretty nervous about a decay rate that high..
i realise i sound really negative, but but the things we agree on don't seem to get as many words ;-)
--
ru
ru
my big problem with it is a realism one; getting extra HP from fighting
just about makes sense, but i have a really hard time mentally
reconciling HP from throwing.
--
ru
Erik Piper
Builds the muscles, ya know.
No, really -- it's an athletic activity, admittedly probably not as much so
as swinging a sword around, but still. And my planned Fighting HP to Throwing
HP ratio, scientifically tweaked to 1.495839649 (or further where the math
co-processor allows) will mathematically reflect this precisely, while still
keeping Crawl the best roguelike around. :-)
Erik
Darshan Shaligram
> bork bork bork ru bork 4:12:37 PM bork 2/4/2005 bork bork:
>> [hitpoints from throwing]
>> my big problem with it is a realism one; getting extra HP from
>> fighting just about makes sense, but i have a really hard time
>> mentally reconciling HP from throwing.
> Builds the muscles, ya know.
> No, really -- it's an athletic activity, admittedly probably not
> as much so as swinging a sword around, but still.
I don't think a hp boost for throwing is a good idea. The frail
spellcaster types (think deep elves, spriggans), have excellent
throwing aptitude. If throwing boosts hp, the frail races may no
longer be so darn frail. It's completely safe and easy to train
Throwing, whereas with Fighting, you actually have to get busy
bashing things that are hitting back.
I'm also against changing rods to one-handed. Evocations are broken
enough as they are; I definitely don't want to see evocations +
studly shield.
Darshan
Brent Ross
Erik Piper <efrn...@sdky.cz> wrote:
//
// Here's the design document so far. It's pretty disorganized; sorry.
//
// Bowcrawl
Actually, I've got that code mostly reworked. Bows used to be pretty
good and were used a lot, but then they got rewritten. I've been
backtracking things and reworking the factors... to many things got
washed out or destroyed by people trying to fix things with small
hacks before understanding the larger picture.
// Changes
//
// - Bows and Crossbows become 2-handed (not so bad for Centaurs, since they
// suck with shields anyway)
Actually, I've done a bit of work on the handedness system which carries
over to here.
// - Rods become 1-handed (no great boost to Spriggans, since they suck with
// shields anyway, but provides a strong ranged option for shield-bearing
// characters to replace missile weapons).
I've been considering turning them back into proper spell staves... but
that means fixing things for Spriggans. I've done a bit of
experimenting with them, and they're not really ready (for one,
Spriggans are currently unplayable).
// - Spriggans gain the same metabolism bonus as halflings (to make up for the
// rod hungering). Alternatively, their INT/evocations skills are set so as to
// avoid hungering problems.
Um, Spriggans already have the same metabolism as halflings in the
current release. That's maintained in my working copy, although the
mechanisms are slightly different.
// - Ammo frequency in the dungeon is increased slightly (to the detriment of
// orcish clubs :-P)
Um, the reason there are so many orcish clubs is because low level
monsters get created with them. Do you really want low level archers
to replace goblins and kobolds?
// - The role of strength in the use of bows is reduced
The truth is, it makes at least as much sense as dexterity with bows.
However, it's kind of a moot point... the end effect of strength is
nearly bupkis. Things are so random and dominated by skill that the
strength factor is beyond notice.
// - Missile god
Actually, the reason we have "hunters" now was to make room for
"rangers" and a ranger god. Something that will get done after the
god code gets redone. But I see you kind of figured that part out.
// - Zin is removed from the game; "good" Priests are moved to the Shining One
Horrid. Zin is the /cleric/ god, the Shining One is the /paladin/ god.
Both are essential.
// - Missile weapons become usable while berserking
That wouldn't be berserking anymore.
Brent Ross
Brent Ross
Lauri Vallo <la...@kolumbus.fi> wrote:
//
// My opinion:
// Crossbows and bows should be combined to Bows.
I thought about it... but that just leads to more and more skill
collapse (really, why have Darts or Slings... just tie them to
Throwing... then why push down the melee skills as well).
// Not many will play if it's seperate from the main game. So you should
// poke Brent with a heavy stick.... Everyone should poke him. He needs a
// timeline and more support!13134 4h6ug46s3 6a34n6d2 l14u21v51!
I need to reprioratize my TODO list again. The problem with crawl code
is that just looking at it can add 6 new things that need looking at to
the list.
// >- Rods become hungering (to make up for being 1-handed); hungering is
// >countered by intelligence*evocations as is the case with spells and
// >intelligence*spellcasting at present.
//
// I guess it isn't too bad. Warriors don't have a use for food anyway.
Actually they do. Most of my fighter characters typically run into food
problems and end up running from corpse to corpse more than my mages.
Attacks cost food and extra unarmed attacks cost a bit more,,, and they
never become free like spells. Mages have it cushy that way (and with
their energy staves).
Brent Ross
Brent Ross
Erik Piper <efrn...@sdky.cz> wrote:
// You'd be surprised just how much you can afford to mill about if you have
// Detect Creatures -- speaking as an unreformable munchkin (not even reformable
// by Crawl, the Anti-Munchkin Roguelike).
Um... Crawl is really quite munchkin. It's loaded with all kinds of
twinky goodness for munchkins to exploit.
Brent Ross
Brent Ross
Erik Piper <efrn...@sdky.cz> wrote:
// Crawl has an imagined culture, and imagining a Goddess of the Hunt for
// it is no weirder than, say, a Goddess of the Hunt for, say....
//
// Greece.
Well, except for the fact that Crawl gods are intentionally gender
unspecified... Greek gods tended to have very definate genders.
Brent Ross
Brent Ross
Paul Arthur <flower...@yahoo.com> wrote:// >If we make launchers 2-handed (perhaps with the exception of the poor
// >beleaguered Slings, which I can, if straining my imagination a bit, imagine
// >as 1-handed)
//
// Ahm, slings are 1-handed. Sling != slingshot.
Very true. A sling can be quickly made out of a bit of leather, a good
slingshot requires decent vulcanizing technology to get a good quality
rubber.
// Granted, you need some
// way to get the rock into the sling, but I could see doing that with
// the hand holding the shield.
//
// Crossbows could technically be fired 1-handed (especially hand
// crossbows), but would probably be impossible to load (except possibly
// hand crossbows).
Actually, in the new handedness system I currently have slings and hand
crossbows as hand and half... meaning that they reload faster with two
hands but can be fired with one.
Brent ROss
Jeremey Wilson
"Brent Ross" <bwr...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> wrote in message
news:cu33a3$rb7$1...@rumours.uwaterloo.ca...
> // - Zin is removed from the game; "good" Priests are moved to the Shining One
>
> Horrid. Zin is the /cleric/ god, the Shining One is the /paladin/ god.
> Both are essential.
I've thought for awhile that TSO could be profitably combined with Okawaru.
Say, replace Ok's Healing with Smiting or Dispel Undead, keep TSO's conducts.
The new god could do as TSO and protect you from draining while praying (I don't
think Ok does). I'm not sure how piety should work; sacrificing corpses
shouldn't be allowed, certainly, but killing most things could.
The new god would be a little weaker than Okawaru, since you'd have to fight
honorably now, but that's fine with me, and doesn't seem too out of character
for a warrior god. And TSO is worse than useless, as is. Picking him as a god
is like taking a Nethack conduct. That's "essential"?
Zin should protect from Torment when praying. That'd make him suck far less.
--
Jeremey
Brent Ross
Jeremey Wilson <noaddre...@yahoo.com> wrote:
// "Brent Ross" <bwr...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> wrote in message
// news:cu33a3$rb7$1...@rumours.uwaterloo.ca...
// > Horrid. Zin is the /cleric/ god, the Shining One is the /paladin/ god.
// > Both are essential.
//
// I've thought for awhile that TSO could be profitably combined with Okawaru.
There's room for both a paladin god (lawful good) and a warrior god
(lawful neutral). The problem isn't just that so-and-so is bad, or
so-and-so is just a variant of someone else. Mangling one god or
another in isolation is the type of thing that got things into the mess
that they currently are. Most of the gods aren't up to snuff and could
use work. However, none of them is what I'd call unplayable or worth
removing (I've won with all the least used gods, and haven't bothered to
finish with several of the most popular).
// And TSO is worse than useless, as is.
Hardly... Smite is awesome. I always have endless fun crushing opposing
priests with it (carefully progressing through the mines at a careful
rate to keep my piety high enough to do it)... and it does good,
unresistable, unevadable damage to any monster in LoS (which scales up
nicely with Invocations). Anihilate Undead is excellent for getting rid
of Liches, and Daeva's are some of the best pets around (smite, smite,
smite... gotta love that spell list).
// Picking him as a god is like taking a Nethack conduct.
Nothing wrong with that. A few B&D gods add flavour, which is a good
thing... monotone nothing-but-bonus gods are a bad thing. Gods do not
have to be balanced against each other... they were originally designed
with the intent that they'd be little add-ons (and as such they're
capable of doing things that cannot be done by Classes alone[1]). So
they can't ever be too bad... only too good (if they break the balance
of other parts of the game). For example, I occasionally play with Mox
(Xom with his niceness flag flipped)... it's quite entertaining
(providing you aren't looking for a serious game).
// That's "essential"?
Yes. Note that essential does not mean "providing things which are all
good"... some things are there for people who want to roleplay (or
loon). Besides, Paladins are more like Nethack knights than conducts...
in fact they're not even that tough. TSO really isn't as sensitive...
in Nethack, I got used to hording food early on because I knew that I'd
probably run into problems praying for it soon enough. I remember
getting so frustrated with Knights, that I forced myself to break
though my problems with them and make them my 4th win.
// Zin should protect from Torment when praying. That'd make him suck far less.
Um, Zin doesn't really suck either (I've won with both, using them quite
effectively).
Brent Ross
[1] Classes, of course, are really "last job" in Crawl. They determine
things about your starting character and then go away, allowing the PC
to pursue whatever course they want. As such, the only way to impose
"class" restrictions or bonuses and provide the extra flavour is to tie
them to skills, equipment, or gods.
Jeremey Wilson
> Hardly... Smite is awesome. I always have endless fun crushing opposing
> priests with it (carefully progressing through the mines at a careful
> rate to keep my piety high enough to do it)... and it does good,
> unresistable, unevadable damage to any monster in LoS (which scales up
> nicely with Invocations). Anihilate Undead is excellent for getting rid
> of Liches, and Daeva's are some of the best pets around (smite, smite,
> smite... gotta love that spell list).
I don't think I've ever had enough piety to use Smite a lot in the Mines.
And I'd disagree that it's so good, either. If Daeva summoning were
permanent, I think you'd have a point there.
Maybe I just play my paladins too much as fighters, not enough as Invokers.
There's never seemed to be enough piety to go around.
> Um, Zin doesn't really suck either (I've won with both, using them quite
> effectively).
You know you begin a lot of your replies with "um"? Not just to me, either.
It's patronizing. If it's just a tic, I thought you should know. If that's
your intent, carry on.
Anyway, I'll quote that as an epitome of your comments. I've won with all the
gods, too. Zin's not as bad as TSO, but it seems like the two of them should
_want_ you to go smite evil in Pandemonium, which is very difficult to do,
because everything there casts Torment. I don't think it'd be out of character
for a good god to protect you from Torment; they'll protect you from draining.
That might make the endgame easier, but it seems to me that Torment's already
kind of a cop-out to make the endgame more difficult; there should be other ways
to make monsters difficult, rather than just making them able to halve your
hitpoints every couple of turns.
--
Jeremey
Brent Ross
// news:cu3rav$eku$1...@rumours.uwaterloo.ca...
//
// > Hardly... Smite is awesome. I always have endless fun crushing opposing
// > priests with it (carefully progressing through the mines at a careful
// > rate to keep my piety high enough to do it)... and it does good,
// > unresistable, unevadable damage to any monster in LoS (which scales up
// > nicely with Invocations). Anihilate Undead is excellent for getting rid
// > of Liches, and Daeva's are some of the best pets around (smite, smite,
// > smite... gotta love that spell list).
//
// I don't think I've ever had enough piety to use Smite a lot in the Mines.
Well, by the time I get there, I typically can manage about one or two
before losing the ability... it typically doesn't take too long to come
back so I carefully ride the critical point.
// And I'd disagree that it's so good, either. If Daeva summoning were
// permanent, I think you'd have a point there.
Daeva's are around long enough. They make wonderful distractions as
well as bonus artillery.
// Maybe I just play my paladins too much as fighters, not enough as Invokers.
// There's never seemed to be enough piety to go around.
There are some areas where you can spend your piety like candy with TSO
because you can get it back quickly... but TSO isn't big on random
killing and chaos in general (unlike some twinky gods)... and that means
you need to play them differently. So it is correct to play them mostly
like fighters, but you also need to make sure you train up invocations
so the abilities are usable when you need them.
// > Um, Zin doesn't really suck either (I've won with both, using them quite
// > effectively).
//
// You know you begin a lot of your replies with "um"? Not just to me, either.
// It's patronizing. If it's just a tic, I thought you should know. If that's
// your intent, carry on.
It's more of a response to things which aren't well backed or even
researched, against facts I know are true from experience or simply
knowing the code far too well. I have to read a lot of comments of
people just repeating what's become a "group think truth" with
increasing amounts of overstatement and no real evidence (for what
they're talking about or that they even know what they're talking
about). I consider it more of a prod to try and shake off the
hyperbole.
So it's a bit patronizing (but it's far from as patronizing as I could
have been)... but any response I can make to a hyperbolic comment like
"Zin sucks" [1] is going to end up being patronizing anyways ("um" or
not). If you ask stupid questions, you should expect stupid answers...
and if you make an unfounded hyperbolic comment, expect to be categorized
with the whiny tweeny bopper munchkins and largely ignored. Oh, I'm
not trying to be patronizing here... this is more of a warning, if you
want to make a serious comment back it up from real evidence not
exaggerations.
After all, I already know that that Zin isn't as great as the non-twinky
gods, but the abilities are still not that bad (I mean, you get the life
protection of Ely without any penalty... in my books that's reasonably
twinky). And part of that problem is certainly that the twinky gods
maybe simply too twinky. Personally, I just think that Zin could be
made more cleric-y... more powerful or useful are meaningless goals, the
real goal would be to have Zin provide a cleric style of play for people
who want to roleplay clerics.
// Anyway, I'll quote that as an epitome of your comments. I've won
// with all the gods, too. Zin's not as bad as TSO, but it seems like
// the two of them should _want_ you to go smite evil in Pandemonium,
// which is very difficult to do, because everything there casts
// Torment.
Um, not that many things cast torment (sorry, hyperbole again). :) I
hope you realize it as such, I know I've managed trips through Pandemonium
without getting hit by it once... it's really remarkable how many cruddy
little demons there are in there when you don't automatically charge in
everywhere).
I've had lots of fun in Pandemonium with paladins... you just need to be
careful with fiends.
// I don't think it'd be out of character for a good god to protect you
// from Torment;
The problem is that it further belittles the one thing in the game that
is scary to high level characters. I've considered it before, but there
would have to be some serious tradeoffs... this is a big ability.
// they'll protect you from draining.
// That might make the endgame easier, but it seems to me that Torment's already
// kind of a cop-out to make the endgame more difficult; there should be other ways
// to make monsters difficult, rather than just making them able to halve your
// hitpoints every couple of turns.
Um, it's kind of hard to actually do that currently because to the level
of munchkinism that's common in high level characters. So it is a cop
out, but anything it would be replaced with would probably also
considered a cop out as well because it needs to reliably cause at least
some fear to the fairly standard and twinky high level characters people
play (which pretty much ends up meaning "arbitrary with very limited
ability, if any, to resist"). This is only going to come down after the
PC is hammered down to a point where more conventional threats can
actually have meaning (well, we could make the more convention threats
have meaning by upping them to be ewffective against the twinky
characters... but then we'd just end up making all players have to twink
out their characters just to survive... I'm rather not do that, as I'm
trying to thin out the tough monsters a bit while keeping challenge in the
game).
But least Torment isn't common in any area you need to go to to win the
game... it's mostly concentrated in areas that are optional challenges.
Brent Ross
Jeremey Wilson
> In article <5SeNd.969$hU7...@newssvr33.news.prodigy.com>,
> Jeremey Wilson <noaddre...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> // You know you begin a lot of your replies with "um"? Not just to me,
either.
> // It's patronizing. If it's just a tic, I thought you should know. If
that's
> // your intent, carry on.
>
> It's more of a response to things which aren't well backed or even
> researched, against facts I know are true from experience or simply
> knowing the code far too well. I have to read a lot of comments of
> people just repeating what's become a "group think truth" with
> increasing amounts of overstatement and no real evidence (for what
> they're talking about or that they even know what they're talking
> about). I consider it more of a prod to try and shake off the
> hyperbole.
It doesn't matter what you consider it. You're being intentionally patronizing.
I'm suppressing a powerful urge to make fun of your grammar.
Anyway, good. Somebody needs to make this place unpleasant. This Kornel guy's
way too personable.
> So it's a bit patronizing (but it's far from as patronizing as I could
> have been)... but any response I can make to a hyperbolic comment like
> "Zin sucks" [1] is going to end up being patronizing anyways ("um" or
> not). If you ask stupid questions, you should expect stupid answers...
> and if you make an unfounded hyperbolic comment, expect to be categorized
> with the whiny tweeny bopper munchkins and largely ignored. Oh, I'm
> not trying to be patronizing here... this is more of a warning, if you
> want to make a serious comment back it up from real evidence not
> exaggerations.
I'm going to have to call "bullshit" on you here. So what kind of "real
evidence" can I provide that will prove to you that Zin sucks? None? Not a
testable hypothesis, then. It's a difference of opinion. And if you want to
speak ex cathedra and make yours the officially approved opinions for Crawl
users, maybe release a new version sometime in the next two years.
Honest people can agree on something without falling prey to "groupthink",
incidentally; generally, the fact that an opinion is widely held is taken as, if
anything, a mark in its favor.
> After all, I already know that that Zin isn't as great as the non-twinky
> gods, but the abilities are still not that bad (I mean, you get the life
> protection of Ely without any penalty... in my books that's reasonably
> twinky).
I don't see why. Draining's not something I really worry about after around
level 10. It's a skills-based game, after all.
> And part of that problem is certainly that the twinky gods
> maybe simply too twinky. Personally, I just think that Zin could be
> made more cleric-y... more powerful or useful are meaningless goals, the
> real goal would be to have Zin provide a cleric style of play for people
> who want to roleplay clerics.
That may be. If the powers Zin provides aren't useful or powerful, though, he's
not going to provide a cleric style of play, because his powers won't get used.
The places where his demon- and undead-smiting powers would be most
useful are very dangerous to take a follower, because without being undead
you're very vulnerable. To me, this is a problem. But if the goal is for
someone
who wants to roleplay a cleric to have the ability to stand in a corner and
scare
undead, I suppose Zin is in need of no tweaking.
What constitutes a "cleric style of play", anyway?
> // Anyway, I'll quote that as an epitome of your comments. I've won
> // with all the gods, too. Zin's not as bad as TSO, but it seems like
> // the two of them should _want_ you to go smite evil in Pandemonium,
> // which is very difficult to do, because everything there casts
> // Torment.
>
> Um, not that many things cast torment (sorry, hyperbole again). :) I
> hope you realize it as such, I know I've managed trips through Pandemonium
> without getting hit by it once... it's really remarkable how many cruddy
> little demons there are in there when you don't automatically charge in
> everywhere).
A trip where you wound up in Pandemonium and needed a way out, or a trip where
you intentionally went to Pandemonium? I can't imagine that someone trying to
grab all the runes or steal the Sword of Cerberov could make it through without
getting tormented several times. There are a lot of flavors of Fiends running
around.
This discussion should also apply to the Tomb and Hell, since there are a lot of
Tormenting things in both.
> I've had lots of fun in Pandemonium with paladins... you just need to be
> careful with fiends.
>
> // I don't think it'd be out of character for a good god to protect you
> // from Torment;
>
> The problem is that it further belittles the one thing in the game that
> is scary to high level characters. I've considered it before, but there
> would have to be some serious tradeoffs... this is a big ability.
I know it's a big ability. I think there should be serious tradeoffs. The fact
that being a ghoul or mummy or having the ability to cast lichform makes the
endgame pretty much a cakewalk I think means something is seriously broken.
> // they'll protect you from draining.
> // That might make the endgame easier, but it seems to me that Torment's
already
> // kind of a cop-out to make the endgame more difficult; there should be other
ways
> // to make monsters difficult, rather than just making them able to halve your
> // hitpoints every couple of turns.
>
> Um, it's kind of hard to actually do that currently because to the level
> of munchkinism that's common in high level characters. So it is a cop
> out, but anything it would be replaced with would probably also
> considered a cop out as well because it needs to reliably cause at least
> some fear to the fairly standard and twinky high level characters people
> play (which pretty much ends up meaning "arbitrary with very limited
> ability, if any, to resist").
I didn't say your job was easy.
This is only going to come down after the
> PC is hammered down to a point where more conventional threats can
> actually have meaning
I understand the logic. There's still the problem that 3 or 4 types of
characters
have easy ways to work around it, and everybody else doesn't.
(well, we could make the more convention threats
> have meaning by upping them to be ewffective against the twinky
> characters... but then we'd just end up making all players have to twink
> out their characters just to survive... I'm rather not do that, as I'm
> trying to thin out the tough monsters a bit while keeping challenge in the
> game).
Could this be accomplished by making powerful monsters much more powerful,
but less common? Compared to other roguelikes, I think Crawl holds up pretty
well in the endgame, but there's still a lot of places where there's just lots
and lots
of monsters. It's more interesting when you've got to think your way around how
to kill one really, really scary thing.
And I understand that this is sort of one of the limits of the genre. But I
never said I
thought your job was easy.
> But least Torment isn't common in any area you need to go to to win the
> game... it's mostly concentrated in areas that are optional challenges.
That's as good a reason as any to make the monsters in the optional-challenge
areas more conventionally powerful, I think. By the time I have to fight
Executioners, they usually can't hurt me. If they could, they'd be
terrifying.
--
Jeremey
Brent Ross
Jeremey Wilson <noaddre...@yahoo.com> wrote:
// "Brent Ross" <bwr...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> wrote in message
// news:cu4mmu$1e4$1...@rumours.uwaterloo.ca...
//
// It doesn't matter what you consider it.
// You're being intentionally patronizing.
Actually, I'm not... and I can say that unequivocally since I fully know
my own intentions.
// I'm suppressing a powerful urge to make fun of your grammar.
Go ahead if you want, I'll ignore it because I already know there's
going to be grammar mistakes since I'm just quickly typing and not
bothering to waste time editing (I'm not getting paid to write usenet
posts).
// Anyway, good. Somebody needs to make this place unpleasant.
This is why I just don't respond to very many posts anymore. I just let
most of the hyperbole and bad facts spread. Now I could have jumped in
and agreed with you that Zin sucks... but in that case I would have been
intentionally patronizing. I just like to be open and candid...
unfortunately, sincerity and politeness are fairly opposed to each
other.
// > So it's a bit patronizing (but it's far from as patronizing as I could
// > have been)... but any response I can make to a hyperbolic comment like
// > "Zin sucks" [1] is going to end up being patronizing anyways ("um" or
// > not). If you ask stupid questions, you should expect stupid answers...
// > and if you make an unfounded hyperbolic comment, expect to be categorized
// > with the whiny tweeny bopper munchkins and largely ignored. Oh, I'm
// > not trying to be patronizing here... this is more of a warning, if you
// > want to make a serious comment back it up from real evidence not
// > exaggerations.
//
// I'm going to have to call "bullshit" on you here. So what kind of "real
// evidence" can I provide that will prove to you that Zin sucks? None?
People have done it before. It's pretty easy. Show you know the
material, mention anything your unsure of and any assumptions (crawl's
code is twisted, so it's forgivable to be confused), tie it to a design
goal or mechanic and show that it's definitely broken in some way.
Just dropping a "Zin sucks" doesn't tell me anything about why you
think it's the case or where it's really broken. There are thousands
of things to look at in Crawl, and I don't add another one without
good reason... so I just chalk up comments like that to really meaning
"Zin is not munchkin enough" (that's typically what comments of that form
have ment).
// Honest people can agree on something without falling prey to "groupthink",
// incidentally; generally, the fact that an opinion is widely held is taken as, if
// anything, a mark in its favor.
Except for two little things:
(a) Most people have no idea of what's going on in the Crawl source, so
their options are typically founded on misconceptions. I see
mistaken memes float around all the time... the fake that a large
number of people were strongly believing that 3 levels of negative
energy resistance gave torment resistance does not make that the
case.
(b) The design of the gods doesn't require that they be universally
appealing. Gods which provide a different style of play but are
only of interest to a minority of the people are considered just
as valid as the Correct (tm) gods favoured by the Munchkins.
Loonies and Real Roleplayers play RLs too.
// > After all, I already know that that Zin isn't as great as the non-twinky
// > gods, but the abilities are still not that bad (I mean, you get the life
// > protection of Ely without any penalty... in my books that's reasonably
// > twinky).
//
// I don't see why. Draining's not something I really worry about after around
// level 10. It's a skills-based game, after all.
I'm not talking about draining (which should have been apparent since
Ely doesn't offer that). I'm talking about the protection during
prayer. With Ely, you can't kill anything while praying... the other
gods with this ability (and there are far to many of them) have no
countering disadvantage (in fact, prayer for some of them also a no
brainer during combat... that's a bit of a no-no in the design).
// That may be. If the powers Zin provides aren't useful or powerful, though, he's
// not going to provide a cleric style of play, because his powers won't get used.
For a munchkin that may always be the case for some things. After all,
there can only be a few things that are the "best", and they'll
gravitate to them like min-maxing homing pidgeons.
Now, Zin isn't particularly perfect for cleric style play. But all the
god's pretty much need work... it's not a matter of
// The places where his demon- and undead-smiting powers would be most
// useful are very dangerous to take a follower, because without being undead
// you're very vulnerable. To me, this is a problem.
Ah, but those are the places where evil is strong. A good character
shouldn't feel too comfortable there, because it's reasonable that the
demons and undead gravitated there for a reason. So it's reasonable
that they're vulnerable. As for "very"... they're not nearly as bad off
as they would be without their god. They get various protections and
their abilities become usable much more frequently.
// But if the goal is for
// someone
// who wants to roleplay a cleric to have the ability to stand in a corner and
// scare
// undead, I suppose Zin is in need of no tweaking.
I took a Zinite into the abyss at a time when the monster creation there
was reversed so that the demons were mostly created in line of sight. I
certainly didn't have a corner to hide in, but I did have Holy Word...
which, in fact, did prove to be very useful. Holy Word has only gotten
better from that point.
// A trip where you wound up in Pandemonium and needed a way out, or a trip
// where you intentionally went to Pandemonium?
One does not typically "wind up in Pandemonium" by chance. The only way
that can really happen is via a panic use of the demonspawn gate ability,
and neither of the gods in question accept members with tainted bloodlines.
// I can't imagine that someone trying to grab all the runes or steal the
// Sword of Cerberov could make it through without getting tormented several
// times. There are a lot of flavors of Fiends running around.
These are optional things. There's plenty of runes and stuff in
Pandemonium... I can get more than enough out of trip through there
while still avoiding situations that look very unpleasant.
// This discussion should also apply to the Tomb and Hell, since there are a lot of
// Tormenting things in both.
Also optional areas. I typically don't have too much trouble with the
torment in them simply by running through them fairly quickly and
avoiding unnecessary fights.
// > // I don't think it'd be out of character for a good god to protect you
// > // from Torment;
// >
// > The problem is that it further belittles the one thing in the game that
// > is scary to high level characters. I've considered it before, but there
// > would have to be some serious tradeoffs... this is a big ability.
//
// I know it's a big ability. I think there should be serious tradeoffs. The fact
// that being a ghoul or mummy or having the ability to cast lichform makes the
// endgame pretty much a cakewalk I think means something is seriously broken.
It's true. Mummies have always been broken and Lichform is a very good
spell that's possibly too good -- even for 9th level (although several
other 9th level spells are at least as broken).
Ghouls have progressively gotten better and better because of PC HP
expansion (and improvements in the interface which make managing their
MHP a lot easier). However, they aren't as strong as they could be in
the torment heavy zones since there's also a shortage of edible
monsters.
// (well, we could make the more convention threats
// > have meaning by upping them to be ewffective against the twinky
// > characters... but then we'd just end up making all players have to twink
// > out their characters just to survive... I'm rather not do that, as I'm
// > trying to thin out the tough monsters a bit while keeping challenge in the
// > game).
//
// Could this be accomplished by making powerful monsters much more powerful,
// but less common? Compared to other roguelikes, I think Crawl holds up pretty
// well in the endgame, but there's still a lot of places where there's just
// lots and lots of monsters.
That's pretty much the general idea. The hordes of monsters have been
growing in response to increases in the PC (especially spellcasting,
which is largely balanced spell vs spell, not with the rest of the
game). Ideally, we shouldn't need huge numbers of them.
However, the problem with just making powerful monsters more powerful is
that it increases the PC power escalation... if it isn't directly to the
PC themselves, then it comes in the form of turning what was once
"conservative" levels of development into "mandatory" ones (the end
result being a reduction in the variety in endgame characters).
// > But least Torment isn't common in any area you need to go to to win the
// > game... it's mostly concentrated in areas that are optional challenges.
//
// That's as good a reason as any to make the monsters in the optional-challenge
// areas more conventionally powerful, I think. By the time I have to fight
// Executioners, they usually can't hurt me. If they could, they'd be
// terrifying.
Executioners are really a lot tougher than they used to be (we've tried
to make them scary... but it doesn't seem like they can be pumped enough
to be reliably such without making them completely ludicrous). However,
there are additional complications as in some ways they're too powerful
already... namely, they can be summoned, and they're already become
overly gruesome killing machines when aimed towards monsters.
Brent Ross
Erik Piper
> In article <36ej8iF...@individual.net>,
> Erik Piper <efrn...@sdky.cz> wrote:
> //
> // Here's the design document so far. It's pretty disorganized; sorry.
> //
> // Bowcrawl
>
> Actually, I've got that code mostly reworked. Bows used to be pretty
> good and were used a lot, but then they got rewritten. I've been
> backtracking things and reworking the factors... to many things got
> washed out or destroyed by people trying to fix things with small
> hacks before understanding the larger picture.
Hi there, Brent!
Any timeline on a release of the reworked code? Considering that I can't
really program my way out of a paper bag, I'd be happy to limit myself to
making suggestions and leaving the design to the *actual maintainer* of the
game... if I think it's certain that the next release isn't vaporware. A
harsh word to be sure, but it's been a long time since the last release, and
I've moved from the "beginning to wonder if it's just plain not on the
horizon" phase to "frankly convinced it's not." Impolite words, I admit, but
sincere. ;-) And I'd love to be proved wrong.
> // Changes
> //
> // - Bows and Crossbows become 2-handed (not so bad for Centaurs, since they
> // suck with shields anyway)
>
> Actually, I've done a bit of work on the handedness system which carries
> over to here.
Fantastic.
> // - Rods become 1-handed (no great boost to Spriggans, since they suck with
> // shields anyway, but provides a strong ranged option for shield-bearing
> // characters to replace missile weapons).
>
> I've been considering turning them back into proper spell staves... but
> that means fixing things for Spriggans. I've done a bit of
> experimenting with them, and they're not really ready (for one,
> Spriggans are currently unplayable).
I'll reiterate, if I may, the thinking behind my "1-handed rod" idea (I've
kind of driven it into the ground, but I'm still not sure I've expressed it
as convincingly as possible): the game benefits from having an ranged option
open to shield-lovers, as this adds to variety and choice. If bows and
crossbows become 2-handed, this only leaves slings, blowguns, launcherless
weapons, and non-staff-enhanced spells. Judging from my experience with
halfling hunters (and all my attempts at balancing melee and missile with
them), I'll have to stick my neck out on the chopping block here and say the
first three are, as of 4.00b26, not worth it. The last one is -- the lack of
a staff de-twinks it a bit, but that's hardly a bad thing -- but is not
really an option for some races or roles.
Thus the proposal for 1-handed, but in some other respect (not necessarily
via hungering) downgraded, rods. An alternative would be to leave some
respectable 1-handed missile weapons in the game. Hand-and-a-half slings and
hand crossbows sound great in that respect. (Actually, based on the
statements in the article Jeff pointed out, it seems that it would be cool
and realistic, not to mention balancing, to make slings work as bona fide
1-handed weapons on the condition that there are stones on the ground on the
player's position, but admittedly that may be too hard to code.) 1-handed
blowguns would finally give darts some respect, at least if darts were
slightly upgraded.
Actually, I'll admit that improvement to the "sucky" (groupthink-wise; you
may have a rebuttal here) missile weapons would perhaps be better than using
1-handed rods for the reshuffle, because they are more thematic (you're a
combat wombat; why are you suddenly pulling out a rod?), and would add more
variety to the game: rods are already well-loved, and would still be, by
those who love 2-handed weapons and the new 2-handed missile weapons; the
boosted previously-ignored missile weapons would start getting used and hey
voila, more variety in Crawl (or Crawl-as-it-is-tends-to-be-played), using
things that are already in the game!
A closing thought here. Shields are pretty powerful, especially since they
offer an extra artifact slot, but most races are either sub-par with them or
with *everything*, including them (the average is 120), and they already
interfere with two things important to wombats: certain aspects of unarmed
combat, plus 2-handed weapons. The current balance is such that choosing
between using a shield or not is hard and interesting. I hope it stays that
way; for me personally, boosted, but 2-handed missile weapons would make the
decision easier (uninteresting) more of the time.
> // - Spriggans gain the same metabolism bonus as halflings (to make up for
> the // rod hungering). Alternatively, their INT/evocations skills are set
> so as to // avoid hungering problems.
>
> Um, Spriggans already have the same metabolism as halflings in the
> current release. That's maintained in my working copy, although the
> mechanisms are slightly different.
You're right. Sorry; I was in a hurry.
> // - Ammo frequency in the dungeon is increased slightly (to the detriment
> of // orcish clubs :-P)
>
> Um, the reason there are so many orcish clubs is because low level
> monsters get created with them. Do you really want low level archers
> to replace goblins and kobolds?
Um, can't we be a little more imaginative?
* bigger ammo stacks in low-level archer inventories
* yes, a few more low-level archers would be a tolerable sacrifice
* the orcish clubs bit was a bit of a joke (as indicated by the smiley), with
a grain of truth, albeit very hidden in it: there is a lot of "junk" material
generated in the opening whose frequency could be sacrificed -- again,
*slightly* -- without harming the game, I think.
Another option is to increase the ammo recycle rate slightly. A very cool
option IMO would be to increase the ammo recycle rate based on throwing skill
or particular-missile-weapon skill.
We all know hunters can win; this suggestion is not about that. It's just
that the lack of ammo means hunters who win tend to be fighter-hunters
instead of hunter-fighters, which is A Shame(TM). Of course they can get
enough ammo by jumping on ammo traps all day, but this is also A Shame(TM).
>
> // - The role of strength in the use of bows is reduced
>
> The truth is, it makes at least as much sense as dexterity with bows.
> However, it's kind of a moot point... the end effect of strength is
> nearly bupkis. Things are so random and dominated by skill that the
> strength factor is beyond notice.
Oh, it certainly does. I'll admit, my problem is that, IIUC, the way the
system is set up now promotes the gathering of munchkiny strength and thus in
turn Nemelex, and, well, I hate Nemelex. I came to Crawl to get away from
things like Nemelex. Well, actually, I'm glad there's a Nemelex -- and
mummies too -- because they leave something in Crawl for people who want
something like that, and they can stand in their corner and do their Nemelex
thing and mummy thing, and I can do mine. And also, without them, Crawl would
be in danger of no longer being the almost-perfect roguelike (because it
might be perfect). But still, I hate everything they stand for.
OTOH, besides the note above (I'll take your word for it), there's the fact
that the premiere bows class, Centaurs, is strength-intensive IME, and the
fact that, yes, it takes strength to draw a bow well. On the *other* other
hand, IIUC the strength factor relates to magical pluses, which doesn't make
sense -- magical bows shouldn't be harder to pull than mundane ones. Now
something like a "big f'ing bow," on the other hand, should.
My conclusion: there should be an influence, but it should be capped, and
perhaps it should affect speed rather than or in addition to other things.
[...]
> // - Zin is removed from the game; "good" Priests are moved to the Shining
> One
>
> Horrid. Zin is the cleric god, the Shining One is the paladin god.
> Both are essential.
I went on to explain myself: since I would be doing this myself and my time
and skill are limited, I wanted to keep things simple, so I preferred to keep
the god count the same (and at first I couldn't think of a way to maintain
the aesthetics of the Temple and mini-temples, though actually you could of
course add a new altar in the center of each). People don't seem to like TSO
(recall the "Shining Zin" thread?), so he was my pick for the bin.
[...]
Erik
Erik Piper
[...]
> Actually they do. Most of my fighter characters typically run into food
> problems and end up running from corpse to corpse more than my mages.
> Attacks cost food and extra unarmed attacks cost a bit more,,, and they
> never become free like spells. Mages have it cushy that way (and with
> their energy staves).
>
> Brent Ross
Meh. In the early game, energy staves aren't present. By the midgame and
especially late game, I'd much, much rather be wielding an enhancer staff --
especially once I have an AotG, but even before then. Perhaps this is because
I strongly emphasize Spellcasting to the detriment of everything else in the
early game, but perhaps I'm missing something here?
But yeah, fighters and especially berserking fighters have to be careful with
the food, unless/until they don't have the "default" food restrictions, or
their consumption is reduced.
Erik
Erik Piper
Googol-um... when I compare it to the *bands, ADOM, and Nethack, I'd have to
say no on this one. Nurse dancing (NH)? "Statgain?" (*bands) Stone-giant
scumming (ADOM)? Foocubi dancing (Nethack)? "I'll just dive this level 5 or 6
more times until I get that resist?" (*bands) "Hmm, no vault, I'll wait a
while and regenerate the level?" (*bands) Gremlin-scumming (ADOM)? Scumming
at low risk for gazillions of items until you get a cool one (all of the
above)? The list goes on...
Crawl, with its two of its only *really* munchkiny things -- Mummies and
Nemelex -- stashed away in their own little corners and with the third one --
Pandemonium -- being, as someone once put it, "really dangerous all of the
time" (except for the torment-resistant races, who are thus all
semi-munchkinish, but that doesn't the non-Mummy ones more munchkiny in the
long stretch before Pandemonium).
Like I say, I play Crawl precisely because it doesn't let me *really* play
munchkin without sticking a big, ugly Munchkin Hat on my head, which is
enough disincentive for me not to do it.
Erik
Erik Piper
> In article <81cNd.1664$ng6...@newssvr17.news.prodigy.com>,
> Jeremey Wilson <noaddre...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> // "Brent Ross" <bwr...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> wrote in message
> // news:cu33a3$rb7$1...@rumours.uwaterloo.ca...
> // > Horrid. Zin is the cleric god, the Shining One is the paladin god.
> // > Both are essential.
> //
> // I've thought for awhile that TSO could be profitably combined with
> Okawaru.
>
> There's room for both a paladin god (lawful good) and a warrior god
> (lawful neutral). The problem isn't just that so-and-so is bad, or
> so-and-so is just a variant of someone else. Mangling one god or
> another in isolation is the type of thing that got things into the mess
> that they currently are. Most of the gods aren't up to snuff and could
> use work.
You really think so? I do find several of the gods a bit weak, or really weak
(and yes, I find Zin to be a bit weak and Mr. "ha-ha you stealth character,
you just accidentally stabbed somebody again and your mercy check failed
again, now get out of my face again" TSO to be really weak), but somehow
unlike with the weak (IMO) varieties missile and melee weapons, I don't
really mind it, mostly due to the fact that they have a lot of fun flavor,
unlike, say, bashing things rather ineffectively with a staff.
> However, none of them is what I'd call unplayable or worth
> removing (I've won with all the least used gods, and haven't bothered to
> finish with several of the most popular).
Agreed. A boost may be in order (and a mini-nerfing of Okawaru and Vehumet),
but not much. Just enough to see them played more often (more variety blah
blah etc.).
>
> // And TSO is worse than useless, as is.
>
> Hardly... Smite is awesome. I always have endless fun crushing opposing
> priests with it (carefully progressing through the mines at a careful
> rate to keep my piety high enough to do it)...
I think the trouble is, people don't seem to "get" the piety-over-time gods,
inasmuch as, for example, Elyvion (as his in-game description pointedly
suggests) is absolutely awesome for crusaders until they get an amulet of
resist slowing, and still very good after that, yet the only Crusader YAVP
I've seen was with Okawaru. I'll have to gave the two good guys another shot,
I guess. But lessee, some possible tweaks to those two to make them more
attractive (more than can be used, so you can pick and choose):
* Some kind of auto-detection of when you're about to accidentally stab with
TSO. Manually checking before every attack is just too annoying.
* Occasional, random holy wrath branding.
* Randomly deflect the attacks of undead/demons.
* An interesting two-edged sword: a Silence invocation. An even more
interesting two-edged sword: random silencing. (I'm sure some people would
HATE this, and I would hate it too, but simultaneously love it.)
* Another interesting two-edged sword: random berserking when fighting
undead/demons.
* Any of many nice spells that could be used as invocations. The armor ones
are out, because having just Oz or just Stoneskin is silly, and so is having
both, but there are still plenty of unused, pretty themeful options, like
Swiftness, Abjuration, Cure Poison (wimpy, but hey), Forescry (sharing a bit
of omniscience with you for a while), See Invisible (ditto), Corona (ditto),
and Remove Curse. Many of these offer themselves as random effects as well.
Oh, and one must-have for TSO: the game should check your Stealth level and,
if it's high enough, randomly cast Ensorcelled Hibernation when you approach
a monster. :-)
Erik
Erik Piper
> In article <kiuNd.1878$ng6...@newssvr17.news.prodigy.com>,
> Jeremey Wilson <noaddre...@yahoo.com> wrote:
[...]
> // Anyway, good [that you're being IMO unpleasant]. Somebody needs to make
> // this place unpleasant.
Jeremy, Brent, I for one welcome our flame-free atmosphere (...masters[1]) in
r.g.r.m; may I ask that you two help keep it that way?
> This is why I just don't respond to very many posts anymore. I just let
> most of the hyperbole and bad facts spread.
Brent!!
> Now I could have jumped in
> and agreed with you that Zin sucks... but in that case I would have been
> intentionally patronizing. I just like to be open and candid...
> unfortunately, sincerity and politeness are fairly opposed to each
> other.
Not really; it just takes a little extra time and effort. I realize we're all
often in a hurry on Usenet and make etiquette mistakes related to that (I
made one recently myself), but things are much, much better when we don't.
> // > So it's a bit patronizing (but it's far from as patronizing as I could
> // > have been)... but any response I can make to a hyperbolic comment like
> // > "Zin sucks" [1] is going to end up being patronizing anyways ("um" or
> // > not).
It is very, very easy to be patronising when someone writes "foo sucks," the
more so if it's unfounded. It is much, much easier to convince the person on
the other end of what you're saying if you don't.
> If you ask stupid questions, you should expect stupid answers...
> and if you make an unfounded hyperbolic comment, expect to be
> categorized with the whiny tweeny bopper munchkins and largely
> ignored.
Brent! The only kinds of posts that deserve that kind of treatment are the
truly despicable kind (trolls). Even truly aggravating sorts of posts
("Topic: whats up; Body: hey dudes where do i find good weaponz"") can be
from people who merely need some cultivating; you see this kind of
cultivating of netiquette on r.g.r.adom all the time.
[...]
> Just dropping a "Zin sucks" doesn't tell me anything about why you
> think it's the case or where it's really broken. There are thousands
> of things to look at in Crawl, and I don't add another one without
> good reason... so I just chalk up comments like that to really meaning
> "Zin is not munchkin enough" (that's typically what comments of that form
> have ment).
Just to reiterate, even though it seems to match your opinion: some gods,
including TSO/Zin, are rather too weak; others (e.g. Vehumet/Okawaru) are
rather too strong; the first need to go up a bit and the others down a bit.
[...]
> I'm not talking about draining (which should have been apparent since
> Ely doesn't offer that). I'm talking about the protection during
> prayer. With Ely, you can't kill anything while praying...
Well I'll be damned... Ely protects you during prayer? Really? I try to pray
with Ely as little as possible (and still end up allatime getting sent to the
doghouse during inattentive moments on the way back from sacrifice runs at
the Temple), so I never had a chance to notice. Nice! Flavorful and cool
while not overpowerful (especially since Ely is pretty powerful already). I
wonder why I didn't catch this while browsing the code?
> the other
> gods with this ability (and there are far to many of them) have no
> countering disadvantage (in fact, prayer for some of them also a no
> brainer during combat... that's a bit of a no-no in the design).
Aww, I dunno. I mean, they're your *god* and you're in a series of
life-or-death situations. If they're a blood-and-gore type, I don't think
that, flavor-wise, there's much room to create an Interesting Choice here.
> // That may be. If the powers Zin provides aren't useful or powerful,
> though, he's // not going to provide a cleric style of play, because his
> powers won't get used.
>
> For a munchkin that may always be the case for some things. After all,
> there can only be a few things that are the "best", and they'll
> gravitate to them like min-maxing homing pidgeons.
I really don't think Jeremy's talking about munchkinism (and I think you
should watch the implied accusations a little), but just making them
palatable enough to use more often. You are right about min-maxers being
homing pigeons (I'm one of them), but there are limits to how much you can do
about that (and this is a separate issue from downright munchkinism... you
can mix-max without scumming, for example). I think there is a tiny bit of
min-maxer in every rogueliker (they are very gamist after all, especially
Crawl), and if something is really a bad deal -- and Jeremy says so, I'd
tentatively agree, and you grudgingly partially agree yourself -- it will
repel that part of the player like min-mantigravity.
>
> Now, Zin isn't particularly perfect for cleric style play. But all the
> god's pretty much need work... it's not a matter of
Heh, I see I'm not the only one to jump around and then forget to fill back
in. Y'happen to recall what you were wanting to say?
[...]
> // I can't imagine that someone trying to grab all the runes or steal the
> // Sword of Cerberov could make it through without getting tormented
> // several times. There are a lot of flavors of Fiends running around.
>
> These are optional things. There's plenty of runes and stuff in
> Pandemonium... I can get more than enough out of trip through there
> while still avoiding situations that look very unpleasant.
Incidentally, one thing that would make Pandemonium fairer for the
non-torment-resistant and those who can cast ToD (or make these types less
munchkiny and thus more attractive to non-munchkins) would be to introduce
the tortures of Hell -- all 4 flavors, obviously -- to Pandemonium. We
players would want some respite in some other respect in return, of course
(maybe fewer mutator-summons, less tormenting, less summoning, whatever).
[...]
> // I know [the Good gods providing torment resistance would be] a big
> // ability. I think there should be serious tradeoffs.
> The fact that being a ghoul or mummy or having the ability to cast
> lichform makes the endgame pretty much a cakewalk I think means
> something is seriously broken.
You know, originally I was a little miffed by Jeremy's comment that torment
resistance is a cop-out, but "in every old spiel at a little truth's
revealed," as the Czechs say. What do you think of the idea of recycling
Hell's tortures, as mentioned above, say, at the cost of cutting back on the
tormenting? Mummies for one would get beat up right good after getting hit by
a few fire-themed tortures, while non-mummies just sit back and laugh... it
would almost make me willing to play mummies, just to take one through
Pandemonium. (Or would a typical mummy be able to handle that while still
sufficiently being prepared for other tortures?)
> It's true. Mummies have always been broken
As I say, I don't really mind them being broken (in a certain sense, they are
broken in a way that benefits the game), but if they get "fixed," that's fine
too; there's still Nemelex for me to not-play.
> and Lichform is a very good
> spell that's possibly too good -- even for 9th level (although several
> other 9th level spells are at least as broken).
For cripe's sake, it's a 9th-level spell. Whoever's worked their way up high
enough to cast the darn thing (especially when it's dual-school[2]) has
earned it, now give them what they wanted.
> Ghouls have progressively gotten better and better because of PC HP
> expansion (and improvements in the interface which make managing their
> MHP a lot easier). However, they aren't as strong as they could be in
> the torment heavy zones since there's also a shortage of edible
> monsters.
Speaking for myself, what I dislike about Ghouls is not any munchkiness
(they're not munchkiny enough for that) but that they can only be fighters,
so if you ascend with a Ghoul, you ascend with yet another Ghoul Fighter,
which has already been done plenty of times. I may be a Loonie in this
regard, but I prefer not to ascend common combos (well, if I ever ascend at
all, that is); Crawl gives me plenty of room for that, and thus I would be
more likely to ascend a non-necromancer Mummy, munchkinness and all, than yet
another Ghoul Fighter.
> // (well, we could make the more convention threats
> // > have meaning by upping them to be ewffective against the twinky
> // > characters...
Oh, conventional threats still have meaning, but only if there are too many
types to prepare for at once. And as long as one of them is fire, then
mummies even get nerfed compared to mere mortals.
[...]
[On Executioners as alternative challenge to replace some of the incessant
Torment on the optional areas]
> // By the time I have to fight Executioners, they usually can't hurt me.
> // If they could, they'd be terrifying.
>
> Executioners are really a lot tougher than they used to be (we've tried
> to make them scary... but it doesn't seem like they can be pumped enough
> to be reliably such without making them completely ludicrous). However,
> there are additional complications as in some ways they're too powerful
> already... namely, they can be summoned, and they're already become
> overly gruesome killing machines when aimed towards monsters.
Any other monster that CAN'T be summoned that could take on the same role?
Erik
[1] Lame joke; if you don't get it, don't bother.
[2] At one point you said that magic in Crawl is not foo-based, but
bar-based, where "school" was one of foo or bar. If I used the "wrong" word,
apologies; I frankly don't know the difference.
ru
now i don't want to harp on about this too long but there are some
illustrative points in here..
Erik Piper wrote:
[1-handed rods]
> the game benefits from having an ranged option
> open to shield-lovers, as this adds to variety and choice.
this casually droppped axiom deserves a closer inspection, i feel.
is "variety" axiomatically a good thing? well, it's often a good thing
and a game needs a certain amount. does that mean that more variety is
always a good thing? clearly not.
"choice": well, in the sense of "a range of choices" it's functionally
the same as variety.
however, there is also the sense of "a choice to be made". arguably,
roguelikes are built on trade-offs. one such trade-off could be "do i
have a decent ranged attack, or do i have a shield?"
thus by adding a decent 1-H ranged weapon, you could be said to
be *removing* a choice (that is, a decision) from the game.
--
ru
Erik Piper
>
> now i don't want to harp on about this too long but there are some
> illustrative points in here..
>
> Erik Piper wrote:
> [1-handed rods]
> > the game benefits from having an ranged option
> > open to shield-lovers, as this adds to variety and choice.
>
> this casually droppped axiom deserves a closer inspection, i feel.
>
> is "variety" axiomatically a good thing? well, it's often a good thing
> and a game needs a certain amount. does that mean that more variety is
> always a good thing? clearly not.
> "choice": well, in the sense of "a range of choices" it's functionally
> the same as variety.
Good variety is the same as choice, but bad variety is a handful of
no-brainers surrounded by lots of other stuff. I have a hunch we can agree on
that. :-)
>
> however, there is also the sense of "a choice to be made". arguably,
> roguelikes are built on trade-offs. one such trade-off could be "do i
> have a decent ranged attack, or do i have a shield?"
>
> thus by adding a decent 1-H ranged weapon, you could be said to
> be removing a choice (that is, a decision) from the game.
By adding a shield, you're already trading off some unarmed power or the
option to use a hand-and-1/2 or 2-H weapon (and these are quite powerful
indeed). So the ability to use both a shield and a rod wouldn't, I believe,
make shields a no-brainer except for those races without a weapon skill
relating to big weapons (the Short Blades races... unless there's one of
these that's good in Unarmed, can't recall any, though).
The other thing is that, for everyone but certain Spriggan classes, short of
a stroke of luck, you won't have a rod until your first scroll of
acquirement, and even that might be the Staff of Smiting (or whatever the
Spriggan starting rod is called), which by the midgame is good for laughs but
not much else. That usually means the Lair. The first centaurs, and thus
non-starting bows, appear earlier than that. So there's also the choice of:
do I get started now with this bow I just picked up, or dive for the Lair,
and my first rod, and hope it'll be a good one? Or do I switch in midstream?
Still, rods are indeed powerful once you get a good one. Maybe better slings
and darts, but still weaker than bows and crossbows, are the way to go.
One odd consequence, though, of 2-handed rods is that they tend to get used,
when they're used, by those who use 2-handed weapons (obviously), the big
combat wombats. It seems more flavorful to have those same combat wombats
prefer big missile weapons, not this dweeby magic crap, leaving rods for
those who want to cower behind a shield. But an interesting balance takes
precedence over flavor, of course.
Erik
Brent Ross
Erik Piper <efrn...@sdky.cz> wrote:
// bork bork bork Brent Ross bork 7:53:43 PM bork 2/5/2005 bork bork:
// > Um... Crawl is really quite munchkin. It's loaded with all kinds of
// > twinky goodness for munchkins to exploit.
//
// Googol-um... when I compare it to the *bands, ADOM, and Nethack, I'd have to
// say no on this one.
Well, by comparison, we do have the advantage that we try and avoid the
big exploits of the past... which does, I suppose, make us less munchkin
by comparison. However, Crawl is still open to a lot of power gaming
even without the standard exploits.
Brent Ross
Brent Ross
Erik Piper <efrn...@sdky.cz> wrote:
// > This is why I just don't respond to very many posts anymore. I just let
// > most of the hyperbole and bad facts spread.
//
// Brent!!
Yeah, I know it might seem a bit evil that I let that negative
resistance giving torment resistance rumour spread... but I figured it
might actually inspire someone to actually test it and discover it in
the natural way (which did eventually happen)... better than spoiling
it at least.
As for hyperbole... well, it's probably best that I don't often respond
and ignore it.
// > Now I could have jumped in
// > and agreed with you that Zin sucks... but in that case I would have been
// > intentionally patronizing. I just like to be open and candid...
// > unfortunately, sincerity and politeness are fairly opposed to each
// > other.
//
// Not really; it just takes a little extra time and effort. I realize we're all
// often in a hurry on Usenet and make etiquette mistakes related to that (I
// made one recently myself), but things are much, much better when we don't.
I'm not talking about etiquette. Etiquette is really only the rules.
One can be quite sincere and be following the rules, or not sincere at
all. You can also be polite while following etiquette, or wield
etiquette as a weapon in a most impolite fashion. The part of sincerity
and politness that is different from simple etiquette is largely
opposed. One isn't truly being polite when they are telling the truth
(ie being sincere) about something good... you are only really polite
when you're showing regard for other's feelings, which typically means
lying about something bad (ie being insincere).
There are places for both... when talking shop on usenet I lean towards
sincerity (thus being polite and simply agreeing to avoid arguement
would be patronizing of me). As for etiquette, I wasn't actually really
flaming (although I was trying to shake out some hyperbole to see if I
could get some more rational arguement) and I tried to explain that I
wasn't really being intentionally patronizing either... but it's easy to
get misunderstood on usenet, so I'll just apologize for any problems
misconceptions of my comments here.
// > If you ask stupid questions, you should expect stupid answers...
// > and if you make an unfounded hyperbolic comment, expect to be
// > categorized with the whiny tweeny bopper munchkins and largely
// > ignored.
//
// Brent! The only kinds of posts that deserve that kind of treatment are the
// truly despicable kind (trolls).
Okay, I'll apologize again. But please look at that again... I'm not
making any real form of ad hominum attack. All I was doing was taking
the saying about "stupid questions" and applying it to make a warning.
The message isn't that I'm calling anyone a "whiny tweeny bopper
munchkin"... it's that comments that sound like them get treated in the
same way (ie typically round filed). I was simply trying to see if
I could get non-hyperbolic rational arguements.
// [...]
//
// > Just dropping a "Zin sucks" doesn't tell me anything about why you
// > think it's the case or where it's really broken. There are thousands
// > of things to look at in Crawl, and I don't add another one without
// > good reason... so I just chalk up comments like that to really meaning
// > "Zin is not munchkin enough" (that's typically what comments of that form
// > have ment).
//
// Just to reiterate, even though it seems to match your opinion: some gods,
// including TSO/Zin, are rather too weak; others (e.g. Vehumet/Okawaru) are
// rather too strong; the first need to go up a bit and the others down a bit.
// [...]
//
// Well I'll be damned... Ely protects you during prayer? Really? I try to pray
// with Ely as little as possible
That's why it's such a well implemented ability. It allows for a strong
defensive tactical mode where you really shouldn't be attacking. Only
really usable when you're going to try and run away and heal.
// I wonder why I didn't catch this while browsing the code?
If you found the spot where it's implemented (inn ouch.cc) you'd see the
full list. Or you could just read the religion screen (or look at it's
code I suppose)... it's the first ability listed. It's not nearly as
hidden as it used to be.
// > the other
// > gods with this ability (and there are far to many of them) have no
// > countering disadvantage (in fact, prayer for some of them also a no
// > brainer during combat... that's a bit of a no-no in the design).
//
// Aww, I dunno. I mean, they're your *god* and you're in a series of
// life-or-death situations.
The problem is that that can apply to almost every god... only Xom is
truly capricious with follows, none are entirely apathetic. Typically
we try for minimal sets and minimal overlap in the design. In this case
we have 6 gods with this ability (including Xom)... that's half of them,
which hardly makes it special anymore.
// If they're a blood-and-gore type, I don't think
// that, flavor-wise, there's much room to create an Interesting Choice here.
The thing is that it's pretty much been standard in Crawl's design to
simply not even offer something when that's the case.
// > // That may be. If the powers Zin provides aren't useful or powerful,
// > though, he's // not going to provide a cleric style of play, because his
// > powers won't get used.
// >
// > For a munchkin that may always be the case for some things. After all,
// > there can only be a few things that are the "best", and they'll
// > gravitate to them like min-maxing homing pidgeons.
//
// I really don't think Jeremy's talking about munchkinism (and I think you
// should watch the implied accusations a little),
He's not directly talking about it, but the idea that everything has to
be useful, powerful, and used a lot is a design paradigm aimed mostly
towards appeasing munchkins. I'll bring up Mox again as an example
again... he's less useful than Xom (and highly dangerous to boot)... but
he's still a viable and fun god (that would be a loonie targeted
feature, for the loons that think Xom is too tame). The gods simply
don't have to be designed for munchkin ideals... they're one of the best
(and practically only) vectors for adding roleplaying ideals into the
game, simply because of the design decision that "class == last job, and
thus has no in game effect". So gods with powers that are only
occasionally useful or used, (or are not particularly powerful in
comparsion to limitations) are also valid... providing, of course, that
they maintain a desired flavour on play (which is where I find Zin and
TSO are weak... I've found the powers to be useful, and in the case of
Zin they've only got better... in fact, while reworking melee I updated
monster vs monster code to make it more consistant and Creeping Doom
suddenly became remarkably better (a bit worryingly so in fact)).
// and if something is really a bad deal -- and Jeremy says so, I'd
// tentatively agree, and you grudgingly partially agree yourself
True, I believe that the entire system needs work. But it's also true
that I don't believe that either of them is useless or broken... I've
played both quite well, and although they required more work than Sif
Muna and couldn't be called on as often as Makhleb, I found them
enjoyable and reasonable. To convince me that they aren't currently
playable (not just not played) requires much more than handwaving
hyperbole. And to just make simple suggestions about them based on
comparisons to other god power levels isn't much better (the gods
interact by their roles and should be well defined by their domaine and
should the gaming experience they provide... balance against one another
isn't as important, although no god should really be overly powerful in
general). So the comments I take seriously would be ones which
essentially come from the entire world view... $GOD represents $THIS,
$THIS fits with the patheon/game-style-goal in $THIS_WAY, $GOD's
followers should thus be like $THAT, and $THESE abilities encourage
$THAT. However, the gods were intended to be mostly add-on package
deals (not a be-all, end-all game defining thing)... so most of them
shouldn't be very powerful at all, just convenient.
// [...]
//
// We
// players would want some respite in some other respect in return, of course
// (maybe fewer mutator-summons, less tormenting, less summoning, whatever).
Psst... Neqoxecs can't see invisible. I used this fact to actually keep
a character with a really nice set of mutations intact (had no amulet)
all the way up until the Realm itself.
As for torment and summoning... the monsters like to do it a lot because
they're still too stupid to know when to do it well. Large summoned
hordes are certainly one thing that should probably be cut down a bit
in general.
// [...]
//
// What do you think of the idea of recycling
// Hell's tortures, as mentioned above, say, at the cost of cutting back on the
// tormenting?
Well it does make the Hells a bit less special, and the fact that
tortures are just spell miscast effects makes them notoriously unreliable
for guaranteeing much currently (that function needs some work). Still,
it's not such a bad idea otherwise.
// (Or would a typical mummy be able to handle that while still
// sufficiently being prepared for other tortures?)
Well, mummies typically cover their fire susceptibility fairly well from
what I've seen... espeically since they don't have to cover the necromantic
miscasts.
However, a good AC typically also gives a lot of coverage against those
effects (which is part of the reason why torment remains the cop-out of
choice). One of the best example of this is the broken (and removed)
Air Walk spell, which gave susceptibility to fire and cold but also gave
a decent base AC. The end result was that you could still easily shake
off powerful fireballs (even self targeted PC ones). In fact, the effect
was very much like gaining fire and cold resistance for characters who
didn't have it to begin with!
// > It's true. Mummies have always been broken
//
// As I say, I don't really mind them being broken (in a certain sense, they are
// broken in a way that benefits the game), but if they get "fixed," that's fine
// too; there's still Nemelex for me to not-play.
The goal isn't so much to fix them, as it is to reduce the number of
things that they are immune too simply in the name of "fairness" (ie
since mummies can't drink potions they were made arbitrarily immune to
the bad effects that were fixable via potions). The result was that
mummies ended up being completely immune to almost all balance
mechanisms. I've only tried to make sure that some still apply.
// > and Lichform is a very good
// > spell that's possibly too good -- even for 9th level (although several
// > other 9th level spells are at least as broken).
//
// For cripe's sake, it's a 9th-level spell. Whoever's worked their way up high
// enough to cast the darn thing (especially when it's dual-school[2]) has
// earned it, now give them what they wanted.
That's why it's been left as it is... however, it has been progressively
made better (in fact, it didn't originally set undead status for one)
and that means occasionally I question if maybe it's been pushed too
far. However, that's fairly moot, as I've been tinkering with
separating power and ability in spells (thus the enhancer staves won't
be omnipowerful "make it work *and* make it big"... to cast those high
level spells you might have to settle with a staff of wizardry (improved)
and lower power if you don't have the skill levels).
// > Ghouls have progressively gotten better and better because of PC HP
// > expansion (and improvements in the interface which make managing their
// > MHP a lot easier). However, they aren't as strong as they could be in
// > the torment heavy zones since there's also a shortage of edible
// > monsters.
//
// Speaking for myself, what I dislike about Ghouls is not any munchkiness
// (they're not munchkiny enough for that) but that they can only be fighters,
// so if you ascend with a Ghoul, you ascend with yet another Ghoul Fighter,
Ah, but class is meaningless. Ultimately, you would just start out as
an unskilled member of race... the classes are just starting packages we
make available to skip forward a bit. In the case of a ghoul, you're
life experience and options up to the point the game begins pretty much
amounts to "died young, resurrected, ate some people, others ran away".
It's not that you're really a fighter, so much as a lack of any options
(with Fighter as the default). Well, until you begin the game that
is... at that point you're free to become whatever class you want, it
just takes more work to become some of them.
// which has already been done plenty of times. I may be a Loonie in this
// regard, but I prefer not to ascend common combos
Neither do I, but in Crawl the class part isn't as big a deal as it is
in other games. You're free to avoid the conventional path and turn the
Ghoul into a mage. As a side note, Ghoul Reavers were accidentally
available as a random pick at one point... they were ludicrously
difficult to play at the start.
// [...]
//
// [On Executioners as alternative challenge to replace some of the incessant
// Torment on the optional areas]
//
// Any other monster that CAN'T be summoned that could take on the same role?
The problem is that the role is "melee class-1 demon"... and demons are
inherently summonable (most of the other class-1s can be similarly gross
against monster opponents). This is more of a case that monster and PC
stats and HPs are on different scales, so what's balanced against strong
PC opponents is naturally broken is it can be used by the PC against
monster opponents).
// [2] At one point you said that magic in Crawl is not foo-based, but
// bar-based, where "school" was one of foo or bar. If I used the "wrong" word,
// apologies; I frankly don't know the difference.
Well it didn't really matter where you used it (because of context and
the nature of the comment), but school was correct. The distinction has
to do with the overall philosophy and design of the magic system. In
Crawl, magic comes in what we call "schools", and we differentiate that
from the concept of "realm" as found in Zangband.
Bascially, a realm based system provides a full seletion and range of
abilities in every realm it offers... the intent is that you really
don't need to mix and match (in fact, you've often got real constraints
on doing that). For example, even Zangband's Death magic eventually
gives you utility spells like identify. Realms try to give different
experiences on the game by offering and isolating development lines...
however, it's questionable as to how much variance there is when most of
the same general abilities are available (only at different times and
with slightly different flavours). IMHO, Zangband would be better if
the Realms had bigger holes in them (after all, a lot of classes get to
pick two).
When it comes to Crawl, however, we fully expect to have the player mix
and match. So it becomes a design flaw to offer a form of identify to
Necromancy (with some flavour over top of it)... we instead expect the
player to develop the PC's Divinations if that's the sort of spell they
want. This does mean that players are likely to end up with some common
set of skills in most of their good characters (because that's the style
they're comfortable with)... but ideally that set does vary a bit from
player to player as people value covering different things.
Brent Ross
Brent Ross
Erik Piper <efrn...@sdky.cz> wrote:
// bork bork bork Brent Ross bork 2:19:27 AM bork 2/6/2005 bork bork:
//
// > In article <81cNd.1664$ng6...@newssvr17.news.prodigy.com>,
// > Jeremey Wilson <noaddre...@yahoo.com> wrote:
// > // "Brent Ross" <bwr...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> wrote in message
// > // news:cu33a3$rb7$1...@rumours.uwaterloo.ca...
// > // > Horrid. Zin is the cleric god, the Shining One is the paladin god.
// > // > Both are essential.
// > //
// > // I've thought for awhile that TSO could be profitably combined with
// >
// > There's room for both a paladin god (lawful good) and a warrior god
// > (lawful neutral). The problem isn't just that so-and-so is bad, or
// > so-and-so is just a variant of someone else. Mangling one god or
// > another in isolation is the type of thing that got things into the mess
// > that they currently are. Most of the gods aren't up to snuff and could
// > use work.
//
// You really think so? I do find several of the gods a bit weak, or really weak
// (and yes, I find Zin to be a bit weak and Mr. "ha-ha you stealth character,
// you just accidentally stabbed somebody again and your mercy check failed
// again, now get out of my face again" TSO to be really weak),
Well, I'm looking at it from a design point of view. It's not just the
so-called "weak" gods that aren't up to snuff, it's the overly powerful
ones too. Pretty much all the gods aren't as well designed and
flavourful as they could be.
Actually, I found Zin to be weaker than TSO... but I never had problems
with stabbing, since I was playing a mountain dwarf who liked to sing.
The offense of smiting was simply more reliable than using pestilence to
try and run around a corner and heal. In fact, the daeva's smiting is
typically more useful than the angel's healing (which rarely helps keep
them around much longer). Holy Word, though, is nice.
// But lessee, some possible tweaks to those two to make them more
// attractive (more than can be used, so you can pick and choose):
//
// * Some kind of auto-detection of when you're about to accidentally stab with
// TSO. Manually checking before every attack is just too annoying.
I had that in the code at one point, but have since ripped out the
entire stabbing system for reworking so there's no place to put it.
// * Occasional, random holy wrath branding.
I've actually put that in (well, something like it).
// * Randomly deflect the attacks of undead/demons.
That's what repel is about (athough it's just undead). I have
considered altering and changing it though.
// * An interesting two-edged sword: a Silence invocation. An even more
// interesting two-edged sword: random silencing. (I'm sure some people would
// HATE this, and I would hate it too, but simultaneously love it.)
Well, Silence has alway been debatable as already broken (in fact it can
easily be compiled out), so I wouldn't want to spread it further. It
might be less broken if it wasn't a spell, but only available as an
invocation, however.
// * Another interesting two-edged sword: random berserking when fighting
// undead/demons.
Goes against the lawful nature of the gods in question... I'd sooner
go for old the standard, Bless.
// * Any of many nice spells that could be used as invocations. The armor ones
// are out, because having just Oz or just Stoneskin is silly,
Actually a friend of mine did some tweaking of the gods and one of the
changes was to replace Zin's repel with a small armour boost invocation.
// both, but there are still plenty of unused, pretty themeful options, like
// Swiftness, Abjuration, Cure Poison (wimpy, but hey), Forescry (sharing a bit
// of omniscience with you for a while), See Invisible (ditto), Corona (ditto),
// and Remove Curse. Many of these offer themselves as random effects as well.
Some, like Swiftness, are automatically out. In general, I'd rather
provide things that aren't available as spells... but with swiftness,
that's really a key feature of low level Air Mages (besides, it's also
really good so we'd like to limit the copies).
Cure Poison is already available from Elyvilon, and we also strive to
try and make the "three good gods" less like each other (it's very
easily to take suggestions for a good god ability and spread it to all
three). For Zin, this would be a another doubling up with Ely (only
Purification is a lot better).
Remove Curse has been a consideration for a long time (way back in the
old source it was). It's just not currently a real power... the scrolls
are very common, and curses just aren't currently big enough an issue...
Detect Curse and Abjuration are more useful.
Brent Ross
Brent Ross
Erik Piper <efrn...@sdky.cz> wrote:
// > I've been considering turning them back into proper spell staves... but
// > that means fixing things for Spriggans. I've done a bit of
// > experimenting with them, and they're not really ready (for one,
// > Spriggans are currently unplayable).
//
// I'll reiterate, if I may, the thinking behind my "1-handed rod" idea (I've
// kind of driven it into the ground, but I'm still not sure I've expressed it
// as convincingly as possible): the game benefits from having an ranged option
// open to shield-lovers, as this adds to variety and choice. If bows and
// crossbows become 2-handed, this only leaves slings, blowguns, launcherless
// weapons, and non-staff-enhanced spells.
There are also wands. I'm more happy with them being the flexible
option. Spell staves have a really awkward spot between wands, spells,
and miscellaneous items that makes a lot of what they do overly redundant
and of questionable value as far as even keeping them in the game.
// > // - Ammo frequency in the dungeon is increased slightly (to the detriment
// > of // orcish clubs :-P)
// >
// > Um, the reason there are so many orcish clubs is because low level
// > monsters get created with them. Do you really want low level archers
// > to replace goblins and kobolds?
//
// Um, can't we be a little more imaginative?
I was being silly like you were. I don't really believe that you'd
want that... but I thought it was worth mentioning that a lot of items
are common simply because they're created with monsters.
// * the orcish clubs bit was a bit of a joke (as indicated by the smiley), with
// a grain of truth, albeit very hidden in it: there is a lot of "junk" material
// generated in the opening whose frequency could be sacrificed -- again,
// *slightly* -- without harming the game, I think.
For most people/characters, that "junk" material is almost entirely made
up of missiles (other junk, like clubs, is largely created because it's
good to give crappy stuff to the low level monsters... consider if
Sigmund or gnolls carried bigger and faster weapons). I know I
regularly have several hundred missiles clogging up my inventory by the
time I get to cleaning things out. Adjusting that further up would not
necessarily be good... at one point, some slight rounding in the code
altered things a few percent and changed the food balance. Altering the
frequency of the piles is not something to mess with.
// Another option is to increase the ammo recycle rate slightly. A very cool
// option IMO would be to increase the ammo recycle rate based on throwing skill
// or particular-missile-weapon skill.
You mean like that bit of "fletching" code sitting over in beam.cc where
the items get dropped? Missile attrition is already a lot lower than
it used to be, especially with a bit of skill.
// We all know hunters can win; this suggestion is not about that. It's just
// that the lack of ammo means hunters who win tend to be fighter-hunters
// instead of hunter-fighters, which is A Shame(TM).
Having to pick their battles is what makes them interesting. The
whole point of managing a resource is in choosing when to spend it.
I certainly don't expect hunters to always be using their bows on
everything... saving ammo with melee is part of their game. I'm very
wary of giving out any more ammo... the net changes I've already made
are giving out hundreds of shots a game already. Part of the problem
is that bows simply used to be a lot better than they are now.
// Of course they can get
// enough ammo by jumping on ammo traps all day, but this is also A Shame(TM).
My current version has limited ammo in traps... it served a number of
purposes, so it finally got done.
// > // - The role of strength in the use of bows is reduced
// >
// > The truth is, it makes at least as much sense as dexterity with bows.
// > However, it's kind of a moot point... the end effect of strength is
// > nearly bupkis. Things are so random and dominated by skill that the
// > strength factor is beyond notice.
//
// Oh, it certainly does.
Actually it doesn't... I've even tested it (had to, so I'd have a
reference point for fixing it). With 15 strength and a lot of skill,
you'll sometimes see a good number of shots down at 1d10 and a good
number up at 1d35... and piles of them in between... boost to 30
strength and you still see frequent shots down at 1d10, good number up
at 1d35, and piles in between. The sequence is pretty much beyond the
ability to perceive as different during gameplay. Any beliefs that come
about due to play that you're getting consistantly strong benefits from
strength in damage are coincidental and probably do to expectations and
filtering (pretty common in Crawl... a lot of factors aren't the factors
people think they are, simply because of the massive randomness of some
systems).
// I'll admit, my problem is that, IIUC, the way the
// system is set up now promotes the gathering of munchkiny strength and thus in
// turn Nemelex, and, well, I hate Nemelex.
Yeah, join the club... Nemelex needs a bit of fixing, I've been working
on fixing Xobeh for a long time. The fact that Nemelex is broken,
however, shouldn't be a consideration for things that aren't Nemelex
related. We prefer to think that Nemelex issues will eventually be
solved rather than have it influence every aspect of the game.
// OTOH, besides the note above (I'll take your word for it), there's the fact
// that the premiere bows class, Centaurs, is strength-intensive IME, and the
// fact that, yes, it takes strength to draw a bow well. On the *other* other
// hand, IIUC the strength factor relates to magical pluses, which doesn't make
// sense -- magical bows shouldn't be harder to pull than mundane ones. Now
// something like a "big f'ing bow," on the other hand, should.
I think Gordon was going for pluses as a craftmanship analogue. My
preference is to just go with the assumption that strong characters will
string the bow for a larger pull... oh, and that we're talking about a
level of technology well before pre-modern compound bows (which have
been around for less than 50 years)... those things use some tricky
calculus and pulley systems to allow people to pull and hold a lot more
weight than they could ever have done with a traditional bow. Strength
used to be very important to using them... which leads to the key
advantage of crossbows over them: they used various forms of mechanical
leverage (winches, levers, standing on it and getting the whole body
into pulling the string) to cock the string and then held it there on a
trigger. The end result was that crossbows were simply far easier for
most people to use well.
Brent Ross
Rubinstein
>
> I think Gordon was going for pluses as a craftmanship analogue. My
> preference is to just go with the assumption that strong characters
> will string the bow for a larger pull...
Nothing wrong with it IMO, as long as Dex comes into play: a greater
punch (+Dmg) for stronger ones, but, dependant on their (usually lower)
Dex, they also should hit less often (-Hit).
> ...which leads to the key advantage of crossbows over them: they used
> various forms of mechanical leverage (winches, levers, standing on it
> and getting the whole body into pulling the string)...
^^^^^^^^^^
which certainly leads to an increased reload time, compared to bows.
I wonder whether crawl's speed system is able to simulate this...
Or is this already implemented (I've almost no experience with bows and
crossbows in Crawl)?
Rubinstein
Adrian Fänger
"Brent Ross" <bwr...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:cu9b3a$tn6$1...@rumours.uwaterloo.ca...
> // * the orcish clubs bit was a bit of a joke (as indicated by the
smiley), with
> // a grain of truth, albeit very hidden in it: there is a lot of "junk"
material
> // generated in the opening whose frequency could be sacrificed -- again,
> // *slightly* -- without harming the game, I think.
>
> For most people/characters, that "junk" material is almost entirely made
> up of missiles (other junk, like clubs, is largely created because it's
> good to give crappy stuff to the low level monsters... consider if
> Sigmund or gnolls carried bigger and faster weapons). I know I
> regularly have several hundred missiles clogging up my inventory by the
> time I get to cleaning things out. Adjusting that further up would not
> necessarily be good... at one point, some slight rounding in the code
> altered things a few percent and changed the food balance. Altering the
> frequency of the piles is not something to mess with.
>
That is no junk it is ammuntion for stick to snake.
Erik Piper
One (repeated, because it's really important to me) question to start things
out: can "we" realistically expect a new public release of Crawl any time
soon? The changes you mention, plus a few things I read on Yahoo!, like tying
SM piety to skill gain rather than spell casting, sound really interesting.
[Erik: TSO and Zin a bit weak]
>
> Well, I'm looking at it from a design point of view. It's not just the
> so-called "weak" gods that aren't up to snuff, it's the overly powerful
> ones too.
I think we can all agree on that. Sign up for Trog, get an extra neck and an
amulet of rage to stick on it within 15 minutes real-time (and then it gets
even better). Sign up for Elyvion, get an infinite supply of half-strength
potions of healing within 30 minutes real-time (ditto). Sign up for Makhleb
and get an extra pair of hands and a staff of striking to hold in them within
20 minutes real-time (ditto). Etc. Etc. It's the early powers that stick out
the most, because you hardly have to work for them, and because IME, the late
early game, which includes a significant period after the temple, is the
third most dangerous part of the game (after the early early game and, for a
non-munchkin, the late endgame), so the help definitely comes in handy if
it's available. But there are late-game powerhouses too; Vehumet with his
Channel Energy comes to mind.
> Pretty much all the gods aren't as well designed and
> flavourful as they could be.
Well, I don't know about well-designed, but I find lots of them to be
flavorful enough for my liking -- Trog is beautiful, Makhleb too, Vehumet
with his love of conjured blood and gore and his frightening but pretty
altar, Xom of course, Nemelex too... I'd say the bottom four in the flavor
department are SM, Okawaru and TSO/Zin... but maybe if I played those last
two farther, I'd get more feeling from them.
>
> Actually, I found Zin to be weaker than TSO... but I never had problems
> with stabbing, since I was playing a mountain dwarf who liked to sing.
Right, so now let's talk about the *dodging* (and thus stealth, and thus
stabbing, sometimes even if they don't care about building it) races. :-)
Well, the thing is that options are good; choices are good too, but choices
forced by dull things ("I *could* play a race with decent stealth and take
TSO, but then I'd have to check before every attack"... naaah) are IMO dull.
If potential stabbers were simply *prevented* from stabbing when they worship
TSO, they'd still be giving up the option of stabbing for the option of TSO,
so it'd hardly be removing a choice from the game.
[...]
> // * An interesting two-edged sword: a Silence invocation. An even more
> // interesting two-edged sword: random silencing. (I'm sure some people
> would // HATE this, and I would hate it too, but simultaneously love it.)
>
> Well, Silence has alway been debatable as already broken (in fact it can
> easily be compiled out),
Broken technologically or broken in terms of game design? My vote on the
latter is that it's fairly well balanced, and I've used it a lot (this may
however mean I'm too enamored of it to judge it fairly; you be the judge).
Ever been jumped by a nasty who's still outside of silencing range while
you're silenced? I have, a lot, despite my best efforts to the contrary. It's
not a pretty sight, especially if they summon things that have nasty
unsilencable attacks (I believe Nexoqecs do; correct me if I'm wrong). Ever
seen a summoner flee outside of silencing range while his buddies make it
dangerous to chase him? I've seen that too. Ever seen six enemies block the
route forward, one block the route back, and one stand back and summon while
you're silenced? Ever wish to hell and back you could read... that...
damned... scroll?? Yes, when all goes well, things like haste+swiftness+repel
missiles+corona+Oz/SS+silence utterly cream your enemies. When all goes
poorly, the silencing creams YOU. I love it. The only thing I might do is up
the cost a bit.
> so I wouldn't want to spread it further. It
> might be less broken if it wasn't a spell, but only available as an
> invocation, however.
Aha, so game design.
> // * Another interesting two-edged sword: random berserking when fighting
> // undead/demons.
>
> Goes against the lawful nature of the gods in question...
Depends on your point of view -- it could also be seen as "a crusader of good
filled with holy wrath." As I said, fighting undead/demons... a paladin type,
especially, could themefully be in a conniption fit about 'em, along with his
god.
[...]
> // * Any of many nice spells that could be used as invocations. The armor
> ones // are out, because having just Oz or just Stoneskin is silly,
[...]
> // both, but there are still plenty of unused, pretty themeful options, like
> // Swiftness, Abjuration, Cure Poison (wimpy, but hey), Forescry (sharing a
> bit // of omniscience with you for a while), See Invisible (ditto), Corona
> (ditto), // and Remove Curse. Many of these offer themselves as random
> effects as well.
[...]
> Cure Poison is already available from Elyvilon, and we also strive to
> try and make the "three good gods" less like each other (it's very
> easily to take suggestions for a good god ability and spread it to all
> three). For Zin, this would be a another doubling up with Ely (only
> Purification is a lot better).
Precisely: Purification is a lot better (in fact, it's insanely powerful in
certain circumstances). I wanted to suggest both big and small things, and
this is a small thing, and a themeful one. Don't really care if you choose
it, though.
> Remove Curse has been a consideration for a long time (way back in the
> old source it was). It's just not currently a real power... the scrolls
> are very common, and curses just aren't currently big enough an issue...
> Detect Curse and Abjuration are more useful.
The flavorfulness was, again, the thing here.
Erik
Mark Mackey
Brent Ross <bwr...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>However, that's fairly moot, as I've been tinkering with
>separating power and ability in spells (thus the enhancer staves won't
>be omnipowerful "make it work *and* make it big"... to cast those high
>level spells you might have to settle with a staff of wizardry (improved)
>and lower power if you don't have the skill levels).
Ooh, that's a nice idea. In one stroke you greatly increase the
desirability of rings/staves of wizardry, you remove some of the balance
issues with the other spell staves (esp conjuration/fire/ice), and you
provide an extra balance to the troublesome 8th/9th level spells in that
they become really accessible only to the specialists, getting round the
'everyone casts Crystal Spear in the endgame' problem. How does it play
in practise?
--
Mark Mackey
The Association for the Advancement of Dungeon Crawling
Hints, tips and spoilers
http://www.swallowtail.org/crawl/
Erik Piper
> In article <36p0ttF...@individual.net>,
> Erik Piper <efrn...@sdky.cz> wrote:
> // > I've been considering turning them back into proper spell staves... but
> // > that means fixing things for Spriggans. I've done a bit of
> // > experimenting with them, and they're not really ready (for one,
> // > Spriggans are currently unplayable).
> //
> // I'll reiterate, if I may, the thinking behind my "1-handed rod" idea
> (I've // kind of driven it into the ground, but I'm still not sure I've
> expressed it // as convincingly as possible): the game benefits from having
> an ranged option // open to shield-lovers, as this adds to variety and
> choice. If bows and // crossbows become 2-handed, this only leaves slings,
> blowguns, launcherless // weapons, and non-staff-enhanced spells.
>
> There are also wands. I'm more happy with them being the flexible
> option. Spell staves have a really awkward spot between wands, spells,
> and miscellaneous items that makes a lot of what they do overly redundant
> and of questionable value as far as even keeping them in the game.
They're quite powerful if you can actually get a good one, especially since
intelligence has dash-all effect on them (other than affecting the training
of Evocations).
There's not really enough wands to go around for anything but emergencies
IMO, and training invocations without rods involves some ugly busywork.
I dunno. I don't mind the overlap of rods' spell list with regular spells;
the remainder of their mechanics is too different from spells from that, and
also they are neat in that they are a neat "prize" that you either get
through great luck (the "dragon armor" of the races that can't really wear
dragon armor) or the "pick your prize" scroll. Neatness has something to be
said for it, as long as it's not "OK, let's now proceed to blast through
eVerything" neatness. I'm about to take a Gnome Berserker [1] (well,
technically Thief) to the Lair, so I'll get a first chance to form my own
opinion on if they let you blast through everything. (I found a random one
with a Kenku Death Knight once, and I kept using it in desperation until my
Evocations rocked, against my will, and it was pretty powerful until a
Greater Naga pegged me (silly me ignoring the devastation a clean hit with
Mystic Blast can do to ya), but then a fire-based rod of destruction lying on
DL5 is rather too atypical a situation to judge by :-).)
BTW until they stop being primarily called rods (2 "staves," the rest are
"rods", IIRC) in the UI of the latest public release, can't we call them
"rods"? Consider this an incentive to release a version where they're called
spell staves (which will hopefully contain all your other work since b26). :-)
[...On increasing ammo frequency]
> // * the orcish clubs bit was a bit of a joke (as indicated by the smiley),
> // with a grain of truth, albeit very hidden in it: there is a lot of
> // "junk" material generated in the opening whose frequency could be
> // sacrificed -- again, slightly -- without harming the game, I think.
>
> For most people/characters, that "junk" material is almost entirely made
> up of missiles (other junk, like clubs, is largely created because it's
> good to give crappy stuff to the low level monsters... consider if
> Sigmund or gnolls carried bigger and faster weapons).
Ouch! The thing is, though, that in the early early game (and having tried a
lot of "loonie" characters, I've seen a lot of the early early game), a club
or a pile of darts are about equally deadly in the hands of a monster
(sometimes considerably, sometimes not); less of the former and more of the
latter would not be much more or less deadly to the player, and probably
weigh about the same.
> I know I regularly have several hundred missiles clogging up my inventory
by
> the time I get to cleaning things out.
True, but it's just one more thing among other things. Doesn't matter to me
if it's clubs or ammo.
> Adjusting that further up would not
> necessarily be good... at one point, some slight rounding in the code
> altered things a few percent and changed the food balance. Altering the
> frequency of the piles is not something to mess with.
How big of a problem was it to fix the food balance? Really so big that the
risk rules out ever touching the item frequencies?
> // Another option is to increase the ammo recycle rate slightly. A very cool
> // option IMO would be to increase the ammo recycle rate based on throwing
> skill // or particular-missile-weapon skill.
>
> You mean like that bit of "fletching" code sitting over in beam.cc where
> the items get dropped?
Oh! (The Crawl code is BIG. Not Nethack-big, but still, there's a lot to see
out there.) Well, for one thing, the player should be informed about this
somehow; I for one had no idea of it. It's not in the manual, but that's too
important to even restrict to the manual; some kind of message about the
"fletchery" effect once per game would be in order. Really, fletchery brings
to mind ammo creation (which would also be neat if it weren't made too
powerful -- e.g. if the amount generated was low, and all the ammo it created
was negatively enchanted, getting better with skill but never better than
-1), but of course ammo preservation is in there as well.
> Missile attrition is already a lot lower than
> it used to be, especially with a bit of skill.
Again, this really needs to be presented more openly to the users... what
we'd probably see then is more multi-missile-weapon missile-specialists. But
even still, the skill dilution is a killer. Either a stronger role for
Throwing or a cross-training bonus for slings/darts and bows/crossbows would
help here.
> // We all know hunters can win; this suggestion is not about that. It's just
> // that the lack of ammo means hunters who win tend to be fighter-hunters
> // instead of hunter-fighters, which is A Shame(TM).
>
> Having to pick their battles is what makes them interesting.
Brent, what if I were maintaining Crawl (hard to imagine, but let's stretch a
little here) and you learned over time that melee sucked compared to
missiles, (say, Crawl had weapon deterioration a la Diablo armor
deterioration, but not for missile weapons) and I shrugged off your comments
as "having to pick their battles is what makes melee characters interesting,"
you might turn around and point out that in any case, it makes it impossible
to roleplay a melee character in Crawl. Which is precisely what I'll say
(repeat, really) about missile characters in Crawl. It's not "interesting" if
the mechanics are such that no hunters finish as hunters, it's "diminishing
the game."
> The
> whole point of managing a resource is in choosing when to spend it.
There's no need to *get rid of* that choice, but when the only Crawl hunter
victories (AFAIK) read like this:
(Demonspawn Hunter)
+ Level 15 Fighting
+ Level 2 Short Blades
+ Level 26 Maces & Flails
+ Level 17 Bows
+ Level 2 Darts
+ Level 11 Throwing
(Centaur Hunter)
+ Level 13 Fighting
+ Level 18 Maces & Flails
+ Level 17 Bows
+ Level 11 Throwing
(Mountain Dwarf Hunter)
+ Level 14 Fighting
* Level 27 Axes
+ Level 2 Bows
+ Level 14 Crossbows
+ Level 7 Throwing
...something's *wrong*. Resource management can stay with the feasible
maximum balance still shifted to something like 67/33 (i.e. 33% of the time
the hunter still has to pull out that axe or whatever in the name of resource
management). The current state isn't "resource management," it's forcing
players to run fighter-hunters, even they they want to run hunters instead.
Fairly pure fighters are a valid playstyle choice; what's wrong with fairly
pure hunters being one too?
The midgame hunter dumps read a little "better" for missile skills on
average, but hunters-*as*-hunters still hardly predominate.
> I certainly don't expect hunters to always be using their bows on
> everything...
Not "always." Even "51% of the time" would be good. 67% would be fine, 75%
would be perfect IMO but I don't want to push you that far.
> saving ammo with melee is part of their game.
Yadda yadda. :-)
> I'm very wary of giving out any more ammo... the net changes I've already
> made are giving out hundreds of shots a game already.
The number of attacks needed for all the kills made in a game of Crawl are
probably in the tens of thousands though, aren't they?
> Part of the problem
> is that bows simply used to be a lot better than they are now.
Well, doing the job in fewer shots would certainly save ammo. More attraction
to raising Throwing would save it too.
> // Of course they can get
> // enough ammo by jumping on ammo traps all day, but this is also A
> Shame(TM).
>
> My current version has limited ammo in traps... it served a number of
> purposes, so it finally got done.
Fantastic.
> // > // - The role of strength in the use of bows is reduced
> // >
> // > The truth is, it makes at least as much sense as dexterity with bows.
> // > However, it's kind of a moot point... the end effect of strength is
> // > nearly bupkis. Things are so random and dominated by skill that the
> // > strength factor is beyond notice.
> //
> // Oh, it certainly does.
>
> Actually it doesn't...
Actually, I was *agreeing* with something you were saying. Hint: the word
"does" only works for verbs of doing, not being. :-) I took your word for it
on the "influence is small" part; shoulda said so clearly, sorry.
[long and unfortunate (because unnecessary) justification]
> // I'll admit, my problem is that, IIUC, the way the
> // system is set up now promotes the gathering of munchkiny strength and
> // thus in turn Nemelex, and, well, I hate Nemelex.
>
> Yeah, join the club... Nemelex needs a bit of fixing, I've been working
> on fixing Xobeh for a long time. The fact that Nemelex is broken,
> however, shouldn't be a consideration for things that aren't Nemelex
> related. We prefer to think that Nemelex issues will eventually be
> solved rather than have it influence every aspect of the game.
Fantastic! And agreed. (But if you properly balance Nemelex *and* Mummies,
there'll be nothing left to hate, Crawl will become the perfect roguelike,
and the world will end!... *please* promise me you'll debalance something
else in the process ;-) .)
> // OTOH, besides the note above (I'll take your word for it), there's the
> // fact that the premiere bows class, Centaurs, is strength-intensive IME,
> // and the fact that, yes, it takes strength to draw a bow well. On the
> // other other hand, IIUC the strength factor relates to magical pluses,
> // which doesn't make sense -- magical bows shouldn't be harder to pull
> // than mundane ones. Now something like a "big f'ing bow," on the other
> hand, should.
>
> I think Gordon was going for pluses as a craftmanship analogue.
The thing is, in the RPG vernacular, +x = magical, unless indicated
otherwise, which it isn't here -- neither for bows or for anything else in
Crawl. I would have a lot less problem with good bows fully exploitable (in
the neutral sense of the word) only with good strength if their goodness
didn't lie in plusses.
> My preference is to just go with the assumption that strong characters will
> string the bow for a larger pull...
[explanation]
Agreed. If you pull Nemelex out of it, then it works just fine.
Erik
[1] So yeah, I (and probably most players) figured out the whole "Crawl is in
the end classless" spiel long ago. I'll get into this in another post later.
Erik Piper
[Nice discussion on netiquette, but sadly I reached the "too much posting
time" point a long while back today, so...]
[other stuff...]
> // > the other gods [that protect you during prayer] (and there are far to
> // > have no many of them) countering disadvantage (in fact, prayer for
some
> // > of them also a no brainer during combat... that's a bit of a no-no in
> // > the design).
> //
> // Aww, I dunno. I mean, they're your god and you're in a series of
> // life-or-death situations.
>
> The problem is that that can apply to almost every god... only Xom is
> truly capricious with follows, none are entirely apathetic. Typically
> we try for minimal sets and minimal overlap in the design. In this case
> we have 6 gods with this ability (including Xom)...
You seem to be mixing two discussions into one: "prayer as no-brainer too
often" and "too many gods giving protection during prayer." Prayer is also a
no-brainer for some gods that *don't* give protection during prayer, so I
don't know where to start in discussing this. Yeah, I'd agree that six gods
giving protection during prayer is a bit much, but six gods being good to
pray to while fighting doesn't seem so bad to me, for the reasons I mentioned.
> that's half of them, which hardly makes it special anymore.
>
> // If they're a blood-and-gore type, I don't think
> // that, flavor-wise, there's much room to create an Interesting Choice
> here.
>
> The thing is that it's pretty much been standard in Crawl's design to
> simply not even offer something when that's the case.
I don't understand you; sorry. (It's not that I get your point or that I
think it's invalid; I simply can't understand what it is in this sentence.)
> // > // That may be. If the powers Zin provides aren't useful or powerful,
> // > though, he's // not going to provide a cleric style of play, because
> his // > powers won't get used.
> // >
> // > For a munchkin that may always be the case for some things. After all,
> // > there can only be a few things that are the "best", and they'll
> // > gravitate to them like min-maxing homing pidgeons.
> //
> // I really don't think Jeremy's talking about munchkinism (and I think you
> // should watch the implied accusations a little),
>
> He's not directly talking about it, but the idea that everything has to
> be useful, powerful, and used a lot is a design paradigm aimed mostly
> towards appeasing munchkins.
And what I was trying to say is that there's a difference between "not too
useful" and "so useless it means the god rarely gets tried out"; the former
is fine or even positive; the latter is not.
> I'll bring up Mox again as an example
> again... he's less useful than Xom (and highly dangerous to boot)... but
> he's still a viable and fun god (that would be a loonie targeted
> feature, for the loons that think Xom is too tame).
The thing is, Xom is just plain fun (and Mox sounds fun, at least for an
otherwise-strong character). Xom has character. FWIW, I don't *feel* like
TSO/Zin do, and certainly nobody is screaming out "I *love* to roleplay a
paladin/priest with TSO/Zin", so I may not be alone.
> The gods simply
> don't have to be designed for munchkin ideals...
And I'm saying that nobody's implying that; that you're mixing up "give us
something at least a *little* more attractive" and "give us another Okawaru."
> they're one of the best
> (and practically only) vectors for adding roleplaying ideals into the
> game, simply because of the design decision that "class == last job, and
> thus has no in game effect".
I think we all get that. And yes, "god as class" is a very cool thing in
Crawl (which is why a hunter god would be a cool way to push hunters who
roleplay hunters over the edge :-P).
> So gods with powers that are only
> occasionally useful or used, (or are not particularly powerful in
> comparsion to limitations) are also valid... providing, of course, that
> they maintain a desired flavour on play (which is where I find Zin and
> TSO are weak... I've found the powers to be useful, and in the case of
> Zin they've only got better... in fact, while reworking melee I updated
> monster vs monster code to make it more consistant and Creeping Doom
> suddenly became remarkably better (a bit worryingly so in fact)).
I dunno. Even roleplayers sometimes want *something* for their troubles, and
loonies do have Xom...
>
> // and if something is really a bad deal -- and Jeremy says so, I'd
> // tentatively agree, and you grudgingly partially agree yourself
>
> True, I believe that the entire system needs work. But it's also true
> that I don't believe that either of them is useless or broken...
You're right, those words are too strong. Just so weak as to be a further
disincentive on top of the mild-lack of flavor. It's a 1-2 punch.
> I've
> played both quite well, and although they required more work than Sif
> Muna and couldn't be called on as often as Makhleb, I found them
> enjoyable and reasonable. To convince me that they aren't currently
> playable (not just not played)
If we assume that Roleplayers are a non-insignificant and vocal minority,
then there is something fishy about the lack of strong voices from
TSO/Zin-lovers out there. And if something is not played, isn't it a shame
having it in the game? (I mean not as much of a waste of programming effort
as those damn scrolls of paper, but...)
(For the record, and to keep you from trumping me by doing it yourself: a
search for "yavp zin" yields one yavp with Zin, and one with TSO.
Interestingly, each is by a shining start of the Crawl community (Mackey and
Kussisto respectively).)
> requires much more than handwaving hyperbole.
Again, I think you're ignoring or refusing to accept the IMO legitimate
importance of "just" not-played.
> And to just make simple suggestions about them based on
> comparisons to other god power levels isn't much better (the gods
> interact by their roles and should be well defined by their domaine and
> should the gaming experience they provide... balance against one another
> isn't as important, although no god should really be overly powerful in
> general). So the comments I take seriously would be ones which
> essentially come from the entire world view... $GOD represents $THIS,
> $THIS fits with the patheon/game-style-goal in $THIS_WAY, $GOD's
> followers should thus be like $THAT, and $THESE abilities encourage
> $THAT. However, the gods were intended to be mostly add-on package
> deals (not a be-all, end-all game defining thing)... so most of them
> shouldn't be very powerful at all, just convenient.
Then it will be hard to communicate usefully with you, because I think a god
with pure junk benefits (if there were one; I'm not saying there is) would be
a shame, because it would be unplayed. I believe your case that TSO/Zin
aren't pure junk, but they hired the wrong PR firm, and are hardly played,
and it's a shame.
> As for torment and summoning... the monsters like to do it a lot because
> they're still too stupid to know when to do it well. Large summoned
> hordes are certainly one thing that should probably be cut down a bit
> in general.
Well in that case, maybe you really *would* have to nerf Silence.
> // [...]
> //
> // What do you think of the idea of recycling
> // Hell's tortures, as mentioned above, say, at the cost of cutting back on
> the // tormenting?
>
> Well it does make the Hells a bit less special,
Yeah, I thought of that. Are there any miscast flavors not covered by the
Hells?
> and the fact that tortures are just spell miscast effects makes them
> notoriously unreliable for guaranteeing much currently (that function needs
> some work).
Go Brent!
> Still, it's not such a bad idea otherwise.
>
> // (Or would a typical mummy be able to handle that while still
> // sufficiently being prepared for other tortures?)
>
> Well, mummies typically cover their fire susceptibility fairly well from
> what I've seen... espeically since they don't have to cover the necromantic
> miscasts.
>
> However, a good AC typically also gives a lot of coverage against those
> effects (which is part of the reason why torment remains the cop-out of
> choice).
How about acid? Mental attacks? If the variety is wide enough, it becomes
hard to cover all the stops, even if you can't all the AC-resistable stuff as
one "stop," I'd think.
[...]
> [...] I've been tinkering with
> separating power and ability in spells (thus the enhancer staves won't
> be omnipowerful "make it work and make it big"... to cast those high
> level spells you might have to settle with a staff of wizardry (improved)
> and lower power if you don't have the skill levels).
Fantastic (though my conjurers will hate you :-) ).
> // > Ghouls have progressively gotten better and better because of PC HP
> // > expansion (and improvements in the interface which make managing their
> // > MHP a lot easier). However, they aren't as strong as they could be in
> // > the torment heavy zones since there's also a shortage of edible
> // > monsters.
> //
> // Speaking for myself, what I dislike about Ghouls is not any munchkiness
> // (they're not munchkiny enough for that) but that they can only be
> fighters, // so if you ascend with a Ghoul, you ascend with yet another
> Ghoul Fighter,
>
> Ah, but class is meaningless.
Suddenly after all your (quite legitimate) talk about supporting Roleplayers,
you talk as if they weren't there? Yes, class is definitely usually
meaningless by the mid-midgame, *as a game mechanic*. As something that
supports roleplaying (and overall coolness), it's *far* from meaningless.
[explanation of how class is meaningless in terms of game mechanics]
Ultimately, you would just start out as
> an unskilled member of race... the classes are just starting packages we
> make available to skip forward a bit.
They're not only that. They also provide a way of thinking about your
character, and as for *YAVPing* your character, they're, I'd say, the second
most important part (after race) of "hey, I just ascended a [race] [class]
worshipping [god] who specialized in [skills]!"
> In the case of a ghoul, you're [...]
...specializing in [skills] so, so, or so, but you still post a "Ghoul
Fighter" victory. Another one. Not attractive to me... but again, I only
speak for myself here.
> life experience and options up to the point the game begins pretty much
> amounts to "died young, resurrected, ate some people, others ran away".
That's one story we can think of, if you insist on that. We can think of
others too:
* meddled with magic, sucked at it (I'm allowed to use the word "sucked"
without being flamed, right? :-) ), died young, found you still remembered
something of magic and still sucked at it...
* meddled with demons, sucked at it, summoned the wrong one, it knew *just*
what to do with you, etc. etc.
* fought in the Arena with spear, shield, and fist, died gruesomely, etc. etc.
* were brought into the world as a horribly deformed plaything of Xom or
Makhleb...
Etc. Etc.
[reiteration of "limiting ghouls to fighters is fine" arguments above]
> // [On Executioners as alternative challenge to replace some of the
> incessant // Torment on the optional areas]
> //
> // Any other monster that CAN'T be summoned that could take on the same
> role?
>
> The problem is that the role is "melee class-1 demon"... and demons are
> inherently summonable (most of the other class-1s can be similarly gross
> against monster opponents). This is more of a case that monster and PC
> stats and HPs are on different scales, so what's balanced against strong
> PC opponents is naturally broken is it can be used by the PC against
> monster opponents).
OK... any Zotians one can spare? Killer Klowns? How 'bout shapeshifters?
These tend to give me a run for my money because I don't know what to prepare
for from one moment to the next.
Hopefully there's *something* unsummonable out there that can be beefed up,
either from the existing residents or one that can be marshalled into service.
> // [2] At one point you said that magic in Crawl is not foo-based, but
> // bar-based, where "school" was one of foo or bar. If I used the "wrong"
> word, // apologies; I frankly don't know the difference.
[explanation]
Incidentally, I browsed crawl-dev yesterday and found the original discussion
again. Crawl's school focus is great, although I don't mind the existing
exceptions (e.g. forescry) either... they tend to have limitated use, and
forescry, for one, besides being beautifully thematic (yeah, I know I know),
at least doesn't overlap point for point with any other spell.
Erik
Erik Piper
> They're quite powerful if you can actually get a good one, especially since
> intelligence has dash-all effect on them (other than affecting the training
> of Evocations).
Oops. It doesn't affect that, either.
Erik
Rubinstein
> bork bork bork Brent Ross bork 1:26:05 AM bork 2/8/2005 bork bork:
>
>> (thus the enhancer staves won't be omnipowerful "make it work and
>> make it big"... to cast those high level spells you might have to
>> settle with a staff of wizardry (improved) and lower power if you
>> don't have the skill levels).
I like it! But what would you say about (in the above scenary) leaving
them as they are (or even with a small, additional bonus), but only for
the *corresponding* classes? That is, an air elementalist would get the
most out of a staff of air, a wizard most out of a staff of wizardry,
etc.
Similar changes to weapon-classes are also conceivable, though I'm
afraid this would induce some non-trivial changes and I'm under the
impression you're not friend of classes being an aspect of roleplaying.
In my opinion, classes are generally somewhat (hard to find the proper
word) 'underproportioned' in crawl, while OTOH they could act as an
instrument to encourage (not to force!) players a little bit more
towards roleplaying.
> Fantastic (though my conjurers will hate you :-) ).
But they would *love* a staff of conjuration even more then. ;-)
Rubinstein
(apologize for dropping in without knocking on the door)
ru
> In my opinion, classes are generally somewhat (hard to find the proper
> word) 'underproportioned' in crawl, while OTOH they could act as an
> instrument to encourage (not to force!) players a little bit more
> towards roleplaying.
in pen & paper rpg terms, crawl classes are closer to templates than
true classes.
classes, in the d&d sense, are more to do with doling out a package of
rewards at level advancement: crawl has a very effective skill system,
so that more or less rules out using class that way.
to get "proper" classes into crawl, you'd need to add some class & level
dependant benefits (similar to the racial abilities). and of course, all
classes would have to get them, and the whole game would require
rebalancing!
--
ru
Rubinstein
> Rubinstein wrote:
>
>> In my opinion, classes are generally somewhat (hard to find the
>> proper word) 'underproportioned' in crawl, while OTOH they could act
>> as an instrument to encourage (not to force!) players a little bit
>> more towards roleplaying.
>
>
> to get "proper" classes into crawl, you'd need to add some class &
> level dependant benefits (similar to the racial abilities). and of
> course, all classes would have to get them, and the whole game would
> require rebalancing!
I'm not surprised, that's what I already was afraid of (in the part you
skipped). But what's about my suggested 'staff - class' enhancement
(also in the skipped part)? Do you consider this inconsistant and/or bad
concept at all?
Rubinstein
Brent Ross
Erik Piper <efrn...@sdky.cz> wrote:
// bork bork bork Brent Ross bork 1:26:05 AM bork 2/8/2005 bork bork:
// >
// > The problem is that that can apply to almost every god... only Xom is
// > truly capricious with follows, none are entirely apathetic. Typically
// > we try for minimal sets and minimal overlap in the design. In this case
// > we have 6 gods with this ability (including Xom)...
//
// You seem to be mixing two discussions into one: "prayer as no-brainer too
// often" and "too many gods giving protection during prayer."
Not really, I'm only talking about the protection here. The fact that
prayer is going to be mostly a no-brainer for a lot of religions is to
be expected. The fact that it's not a no-brainer for Elyvilon is
something I'd like to make more special, which does automatically imply
to me that the other protecting gods probably need to be changed (well
maybe not Xom, because that protection is already different and is
suitably capricious). This implies to me that the first step to
changing the gods should involve the entire religious system and start
by defining the domaines and intents of the gods more clearly.
// > I'll bring up Mox again as an example
// > again... he's less useful than Xom (and highly dangerous to boot)... but
// > he's still a viable and fun god (that would be a loonie targeted
// > feature, for the loons that think Xom is too tame).
//
// The thing is, Xom is just plain fun (and Mox sounds fun, at least for an
// otherwise-strong character).
I find Mox to be most fun with a Chaos Warrior from the start... that way
you're not hosing a reasonable character, but rather playing in a sort
of nightmare mode where you might end up fighting your own weapon before
you get to the second room (this has happened twice to me under Mox).
// Xom has character. FWIW, I don't *feel* like
// TSO/Zin do, and certainly nobody is screaming out "I *love* to roleplay a
// paladin/priest with TSO/Zin", so I may not be alone.
Well, that's why I consider them weak. Not because I find them useless,
under powered, or overly tricky to play.
// > // and if something is really a bad deal -- and Jeremy says so, I'd
// > // tentatively agree, and you grudgingly partially agree yourself
// >
// > True, I believe that the entire system needs work. But it's also true
// > that I don't believe that either of them is useless or broken...
//
// You're right, those words are too strong. Just so weak as to be a further
// disincentive on top of the mild-lack of flavor. It's a 1-2 punch.
I don't find them particularly weak. I think the reason that things
like Smite look bad now, is that the spells aren't balanced anymore
against anything except themselves. Smite used to be awesome in it's
reliable damage that could go over blockers (which is why I still
love TSO)... but nowdays, people have caught on that they can just
pick up a few enhancers and blow all the monsters away with firestorm,
or the reliable and powerful crystal spear. Add to that the fact that
Air has an almost duplicate of that ability that can be increased with
an enhancer (with that enhancer it's definitly not as bad as some people
think it is... add Summon Small Furry Target and you have a good
combo).
// If we assume that Roleplayers are a non-insignificant and vocal minority,
Actually, my assuption is that when it comes to RLs even a lot of
tabletop Roleplayers become Munchkins (simply because there isn't human
interaction factors). And those that remain tend to be less vocal than
the Munchkins, simply because they're more willing to put up with things
more than complain about them (in fact limitations (intended or
otherwise) tend to be good seeds for Roleplayers and Loonies in general,
it gives them something to play off of).
// Then it will be hard to communicate usefully with you, because I think a god
// with pure junk benefits (if there were one; I'm not saying there is) would be
// a shame, because it would be unplayed.
With the gods, there's always room for at least one of anything. Bad
gods are just as viable as good ones for play (in the same way that
players of Cosmic Encounter created bad powers). What matters is if it
fits a role... and how that role fits with the game and the other gods
as a whole. And, it's not so much "hard" to come up with what I'd
consider a good suggestion, as it is non-trivial... because I'd like to
see the work, the assumptions, and how it fits into the big picture (ie
more of a plan for religion reform rather than small tweaks... small
tweaks have actually damaged a number of things that were working fairly
well before (mostly because the big picture was obscured by obfuscated
code), I've found that looking at old code and undoing small patchy
kludges actually can make things better).
// > // [...]
// > //
// > // What do you think of the idea of recycling
// > // Hell's tortures, as mentioned above, say, at the cost of cutting back on
// > the // tormenting?
// >
// > Well it does make the Hells a bit less special,
//
// Yeah, I thought of that. Are there any miscast flavors not covered by the
// Hells?
Yep, quite a few as the Hells tend to focus on their element, but also
have a chance of producing Necromantic, Summoning, Conjuration, or
Enchantment effects.
// > [...] I've been tinkering with
// > separating power and ability in spells (thus the enhancer staves won't
// > be omnipowerful "make it work and make it big"... to cast those high
// > level spells you might have to settle with a staff of wizardry (improved)
// > and lower power if you don't have the skill levels).
//
// Fantastic (though my conjurers will hate you :-) ).
It will require adjustment for some people (those who like to
automatically spam with the big spells when smaller spells might do).
People like me who don't bother with the large spells as much and are
used to nickel and diming with of conventional backup should adjust
rather quickly.
// > // so if you ascend with a Ghoul, you ascend with yet another
// > // Ghoul Fighter,
// >
// > Ah, but class is meaningless.
//
// Suddenly after all your (quite legitimate) talk about supporting Roleplayers,
// you talk as if they weren't there? Yes, class is definitely usually
// meaningless by the mid-midgame, *as a game mechanic*. As something that
// supports roleplaying (and overall coolness), it's *far* from meaningless.
// [explanation of how class is meaningless in terms of game mechanics]
Not really... not having any classes at all would be the most
Roleplaying thing to do (in that way we wouldn't really be forcing
anything on the player, they'd be fully free to play the character they
wanted to). But that would mean that we'd have to set the starting
timeframe back and have an overworld for the character to develop in...
a place where you'd find that Trolls and Ghouls and such just wouldn't
be able to find people to teach them anything. The fact that you start
with a character that fits into the molds society placed on it is a good
start for any roleplaying... you wouldn't have wanted anything unusual
and interesting to happen before you start play anyways.
Besides, I've been tempted to make Ghoul and Mummy classes (joining the
legions of the undead counts as a "last job" of sorts). Of course, then
you'd have to look through piles of YAVPs from Demigod Mummies and Naga
Ghouls. :)
// Ultimately, you would just start out as
// > an unskilled member of race... the classes are just starting packages we
// > make available to skip forward a bit.
//
// They're not only that. They also provide a way of thinking about your
// character, and as for *YAVPing* your character, they're, I'd say, the second
// most important part (after race) of "hey, I just ascended a [race] [class]
// worshipping [god] who specialized in [skills]!"
Also, I finally broke down and changed the leveling messages to refer to
the race (not the class)... thus it's technically a level 27 Ghoul, not
a Fighter. As for additional qualifiers, it's better to consider the
nickname of the final character than the starting class... that's closer
to the class you played. Periodically talk comes up for creating a more
complicated system for that that takes multiple stats into mind and thus
would be far more accurate and representive of "current class".
// > In the case of a ghoul, you're [...]
//
// ...specializing in [skills] so, so, or so, but you still post a "Ghoul
// Fighter" victory. Another one. Not attractive to me... but again, I only
// speak for myself here.
I've seen several Troll Berserkers who won after abandoning Trog for
spellcasting. The only problem is that the game records and mentions
the starting class... but the starting class is simply not important by
the time you get to midgame, let alone win. You really should mostly
ignore it unless the character is stated and the dump shows that the
character was "pure"... it's only the first act of the story.
// > // [On Executioners as alternative challenge to replace some of the
// > incessant // Torment on the optional areas]
// > //
// > // Any other monster that CAN'T be summoned that could take on the same
// > role?
// >
// > The problem is that the role is "melee class-1 demon"... and demons are
// > inherently summonable (most of the other class-1s can be similarly gross
// > against monster opponents). This is more of a case that monster and PC
// > stats and HPs are on different scales, so what's balanced against strong
// > PC opponents is naturally broken is it can be used by the PC against
// > monster opponents).
//
// OK... any Zotians one can spare? Killer Klowns? How 'bout shapeshifters?
// These tend to give me a run for my money because I don't know what to prepare
// for from one moment to the next.
The thing is that Pandemonium is the home of the demons... non-demons
are extraplanar beings there and really don't belong (although there are
a handful of them). Plus Zot natives are more special when kept to the
Realm itself.
Brent Ross
R. Dan Henry
wrote:
>Sounds fishy. Halflings are too weak already.
But they're great with slings. Add some advanced sling ammo -- lead
bullets or exotic crystal shots. That suggestion aside, halflings are
a primary beneficiary if archery in general is made practical. If my
idea of adding missile-augmenting spells to Air magic, that's another
skill halflings are actually good at. The proposal also made Strength
less important to missile combat, which would aid halflings.
>I don't like it that you would have to have this god, or it being so
>much an all in one package.
Mertisa would be for a "pure" archer or archer/wind mage. An
archer-fighter (which all hunters pretty much need to be now), would
still be able to worship, say, Okawaru. And an elf using bow to
augment magic might still go with Sif Muna.
R. Dan Henry
danh...@inreach.com
R. Dan Henry
>having mulled over the recent discussion on missile weapons in Crawl a lot,
>I've started thinking about producing a variant that heavily involves heavy
>changes to them. It's a pretty bold thought, since I'm not really a
>programmer, but it's a little easier to modify someone else's code than to
>write one's own.
Kewl.
>- Bows and Crossbows become 2-handed (not so bad for Centaurs, since they
>suck with shields anyway)
Well, that's "realistic", at least, but that's a neutral factor in
roguelike design. OTOH, crossbowmen especially would carry shields
that could be stuck into the ground to provide cover on the
battlefield, so shield-and-missile-launcher isn't exactly unrealistic,
either.
>- Rods become 1-handed (no great boost to Spriggans, since they suck with
>shields anyway, but provides a strong ranged option for shield-bearing
>characters to replace missile weapons).
Given that dressing up like a tank goes well with carrying a shield
and poorly (in Crawl and RPG-cliche, at any rate) with casting spells,
this is a fair idea. And mages who do want to use rods will generally
have two hands available as they'll be wanting staves.
>- Rods become hungering (to make up for being 1-handed); hungering is
>countered by intelligence*evocations as is the case with spells and
>intelligence*spellcasting at present.
I don't like this just because it makes rods and spell-casting more
same-y.
>- Ammo frequency in the dungeon is increased slightly (to the detriment of
>orcish clubs :-P)
I like orcish clubs when I'm making snakes. Maybe allow disarmed traps
to give more arrows/bolts (darts are plentiful already)? More stones
early would be okay -- the slingers and Earth mages would be happy and
everyone else can leave them on the floor.
Another alternative is to make ammo break less as you become more
skilled. [After finishing the thread I see Throwing already does, but
you might up the effect or (my preference) allow weapon skill to
influence it as well (if it doesn't already -- maybe I should download
the source).]
>- Missile weapons get heavy penalties at close range (exceptions?)
For realism, I'd penalize bows (arrows flexes at begin of flight and
would not hit squarely), slings (need a bit of room), but crossbow
should only have speed penalty (fine point-blank weapon, but dodging
would interfere with reloading). Thrown weapons and blowguns would be
fine with no penalty (they're weak enough as it is, give them some
advantage -- hand crossbow might also have no short range penalty).
>- The role of strength in the use of bows is reduced
Don't know how this works, so won't comment. But longbowmen were
recognizable by sight by their distinctive musculature -- strength is
very much a factor in the use of a self bow and the heavier crossbows
took some strength to reload. From a game-balance point of view,
however, you might want to change this.
>- Missile god
> - Proposed name is Mertisa (yes, this is an anagram of Artemis)
> - Possible powers - will need to cull out half of these
> - Swiftness
> - Blink
> - Teleport Control
> - Healing
> - Haste
> - Create ammo
> - Brand bow
> - Randomly reacting to missile fire by casting deflect missiles
> - Likes
> - The use of missile weapons while praying
> - The slaying of monsters while praying
> - Dislikes
> - The use of melee weapons while praying
> - The use of... Evocations? Conjurations? Stimulants? (The latter already
>has existing, unused hooks in the code.)
> - Piety decreases with time
>- Zin is removed from the game; "good" Priests are moved to the Shining One
Comparing to what I wrote last August on this topic:
*What god(s) do you prefer with hunters? One of the reasons I feel
*missile weapons aren't a good focus in Crawl is none of the gods
*really feels right for shooter types. Haste is useful, but those who
*grant it give might as well, which is melee oriented. I'd like to see
*an archery god, who gives out shooters and ammunition, grants hasting
*and some other power that works for shooters (maybe protection from
*the missiles of others?), likes killing in his name and sacrifices of
*corpses, maybe dislikes directly damaging magic (which competes with
*missiles) when praying. It would make a good replacement for one of
*Zin and the Shining One, the purity twins, who seem too alike to
*justify keeping both when one playing style lacks a god altogether.
I guess I was wrong about might, if strength is all that important in
archery. But I agree the purity twins really are not distinct enough,
people call them "the Shining Zin" and does *anyone* worship them
unless playing a class that starts that way? I don't think that an
archery god should dislike melee, just ranged magic (direct
competition) -- a hunter should be able to fight with his blade, in
case he attacked while skinning/butchering his kill.
Swiftness (should have thought of that rather than haste), blink, and
missile protection are the three powers I'm *sure* should be granted.
I'm also pretty keen on gifts of ranged weapons and ammunition.
If you want a hunter god, rather than an archery god, how about as a
unique feature some bonus when carving meat? Bonus chunks or reduced
chance of "bad" chunks.
>- Missile weapons become usable while berserking
I would expect a berserker to at least be able to throw an axe.
Reloading a crossbow is harder to picture. Maybe throw things, but not
fire launchers, although that's still a significant change.
>- Maybe: 1 class is removed from the game and replaced with the Ranger, a
>variant of the Hunter who starts out worshipping either the Hunter god or 1
>other (Okawaru? Elyvilon? Trog?).
No need to remove a class unless you're hitting a hard-coded limit on
number of classes. Personally, I'd like a mage/fighter hybrid who
starts with Divinations (Seer?). I don't think a Ranger as you
describe is much necessary. Starting with a god isn't that
distinctive, since the ET isn't that hard to get to; I'd rather see a
Ranger who is a hunter/mage cross. Maybe with Air magic, as I think
Air is the logical place to add some missile-enhancement spells
(better than berserking archers). Except for Draconians, all
Air-talented races have some missile weapon talent as well and giving
Air-mages a chance to use their element to enhance missile weapon
attacks instead of taking up other elements for damage later in the
game would make playing a "pure" Air Elementalist easier.
>Thoughts:
>The idea is to make roleplaying a hunter more feasible, without giving
>missile weapons so much power that they dominate the game and players'
>choices. I think the right balance will be the one where the casual missile
>weapon user is a little better off than before, and the dedicated missile
>weapon user is pretty much required to worship Mertisa or still face some
>pretty large ammo problems (thus "Create Ammo"). As I sit here thinking about
>this, Create Ammo could lead to some exploits such as starting with Mertisa,
>creating lots of ammo, then switching gods; if there is some way to create an
>item with temporary duration, this would be ideal.
Mertisa's punishments would include destroying ammunition and
disenchanting missile weapons.
R. Dan Henry
danh...@inreach.com
R. Dan Henry
>i would also add:
>
>- spriggan hunter (hand crossbow)
Crossbows are a Spriggan's worst missile weapon, so this choice makes
little sense.
>- new items:
> - war bow
Meaning what?
> - arbalest (aka heavy crossbow)
Actually, "arbalest" is merely another word for crossbow, but another
crossbow is fine and arbalest as heaviest crossbow is a common
gamerism.
>- more bow brands
Sure. And some more ammo brands.
(bow) of ducking (+ to Evasions) would be a good start.
>- remove the anti-laucher code in god gifts and aquirement.
For Acquirement, missiles should be its own category. Trog should not
grant missile weapons, but Okawaru could.
R. Dan Henry
danh...@inreach.com
R. Dan Henry
>Incidentally, one very radical idea that I'm enamored with but didn't mention
>in the original post is tying hitpoints to the higher of Fighting and
>Throwing, as is the case with magic points and Spellcasting/ Invocations/
>Evocations at the moment. This would end the dilemma of Hunters having to do
>melee (even if they had the ammo to avoid it) just in order to build up a
>decent supply of HP. Since based on ru's comments of "allow berserking with a
>bow is unwise," I'd like to use this to counterbalance the proposed
>2-handedness and pointblank penalty.
I don't see it building HP, really. Maybe it could provide a small
bonus to Evasions (say 1 point of Evasions for every 5 levels of
Throwing)? Standing off and plinking with a bow isn't going to train
you in taking damage, but it might involve learning when to duck.
R. Dan Henry
danh...@inreach.com
R. Dan Henry
>bork bork bork ru bork 7:02:37 PM bork 2/3/2005 bork bork:
[lots of snippity-snip, as usual]
>On the one hand I regret calling for thoughts and then pushing for something
>that's resisted, but on the other hand I really think this reshuffle can
>leave evocationists, shield-lovers, hunters, and overall everybody happy in
>the end. I'd like to go through with it, and just pray that nobody will see
>me as too stubborn.
Not everyone is resisting it and shield+rod matches racial skill
distributions better than shield+archery.
>> on the subject of making gods happy, what about sacrificing?
>
>I find it boring... I like gods that just let me get on with the game (even
>if I'm not playing with a pure "kill and keep moving" god at the moment), so
>I'd like to add one. ;-P
My own suggestion for a hunter/archer god included sacrifice, but only
corpses. Offering the kill makes sense to me, but if you give a
butchering bonus while praying as I suggested in another post, that
would be out. It's only altar-saccing that slows the game.
R. Dan Henry
danh...@inreach.com
R. Dan Henry
>like i said, i would counsel altering as little as possible.
I disagree and you should trust the person with the working Shift key.
:-)
Since you aren't submitting a patch, but building a variant, there is
no need to minimize your code. If some of your changes get folded back
into the main Crawl code, it'll be the maintainer's job to decide if
things like making rods one-handed should be included.
Be bold.
>see invisible? the eyesight thing works, definitely.
>detect creatures? "Mertisa shows you your prey"
Both good ideas.
R. Dan Henry
danh...@inreach.com
R. Dan Henry
(Brent Ross) wrote:
>So it's a bit patronizing (but it's far from as patronizing as I could
>have been)... but any response I can make to a hyperbolic comment like
>"Zin sucks" [1] is going to end up being patronizing anyways ("um" or
>not). If you ask stupid questions, you should expect stupid answers...
"Zin sucks" is an *opinion*. You cannot know it is false, because it
is neither true nor false. Such an opinion may be well-supported or
poorly-supported, but you should not assume that since Zin doesn't
suck given your playstyle that it doesn't suck given someone else's
playstyle, nor should you even assume that your experience is typical.
OTOH, if *you* like having both Zin and TSO, that's your call. Just
realize that they really don't seem to be that popular, either as
powerful *or* as interesting. Then again, maybe their supporters are
just quiet. Take a poll if you care.
R. Dan Henry
danh...@inreach.com
R. Dan Henry
>I certainly understand the risk of interest in the variant being low; that's
>why I want to make sure it's a) really great ;-) and b) to the liking of, at
>least, anyone who speaks up about my proposals.
Do it well enough and if Brent doesn't move on a new release he may
have passed the scepter to you like it not. Players will "vote with
their downloads".
>Seek and ru protested recently, "Why in the hell are bows 1-handed?" I weakly
>defended the 1-handed implementation, but the truth is, they were and are
>right. Sure, realism isn't everything, but when realism can be gained without
>hurting the gameplay, why not? If bows and crossbows are strengthened in
>other respects, then the balance, and thus I should hope gameplay, is
>maintained as long as those other respects aren't unfun.
As I write in another post, their are shield designed to be used by
archers. I'd suggest maybe only allowing large shields to be used with
bows and crossbows, if you want realism. Only screws Spriggans, I
believe, and they shouldn't be archery buffs anyway. This does mean
they can use the "best" shields, but probably wait longer to find a
shield and may have to forgo some nifty shields of the wrong type.
R. Dan Henry
danh...@inreach.com
R. Dan Henry
<noaddre...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>What constitutes a "cleric style of play", anyway?
Well, you'd have to add altar boys to the game...
R. Dan Henry
danh...@inreach.com
R. Dan Henry
>Hmm, I think there will have to be a lot of *fire* involved in the wrath of
>Mertisa, for the "benefit" of a certain race...
Why are you worried about Mummies scumming Mertisa for ammo? That's
far less abusive than what they can do with Sif Muna *and* right now,
they can scum for ammo-carrying monsters. An archer mummy just needs
Detect Monsters and knowledge of what levels centaurs are common on
and it'll be all the arrows you can carry.
>The thought was a roleplaying one: Mertisa is jealous of other ways of doing
>ranged damage. OK, Conjurations it is.
I really think it should be ranged damage as such, if that isn't too
hard to code. Evoking a Rod for defense would be cool with Mertisa,
but Evoking a Rod to do damage would be bad.
>What benefit do Berserkers, Priests, Paladins, Chaos Knights, and Death
>Knights bring over allowing people only to play Fighters, and wait until the
>Temple to choose? A lot, I'd say.
If you *have* to replace a class to make room for Rangers, I'd go with
Priests or Paladins. If anything, the pilgrimage to the ET in order to
formally dedicate oneself to the cause should be a bonus to the
roleplayers.
>I like Lauri's suggestion of simply allowing a choice of a god or two
>(including No God) when starting a Hunter. There's a precedent in Death
>Knights -- they can take Necromancy or Yrsadfafdsmul.
Don't forget to give the No God Hunter something in exchange for
waiting for piety.
R. Dan Henry
danh...@inreach.com
R. Dan Henry
>bork bork bork ru bork 11:51:06 AM bork 2/4/2005 bork bork:
>> that's hardly comparable to haste! regaining piety just by shooting
>> would remove the only real drawback of the high level god-powers.
>
>Really, I suggested it because I like it for the thematicness. What if the
>level of piety decay for this god is high enough ("Mertisa is fickle") that
>the end balance is about the same as if there were no piety gain for this. Or
>would that feel like too much of a straitjacket? My thought is a god who's a
>choice (*a* choice :-) ) for a hunter who wants to roleplay a hunter, and for
>those characters it would mean no extra stress, but let me know your thoughts
>here.
Making the decay rate that high to compensate for potential
piety-scumming simply makes piety-scumming necessary. If you want more
than piety-on-kill, make it piety-on-hit, not piety-on-firing, so you
can't run it up in the Temple. You may be missing that an Elf
worshiping Mertisa could get a sling and stand around playing, firing
stone after stone to build piety while engaging in no risk if you give
piety just for shooting. Eventually you'd run out of stones, but you
find plenty of stones and if you don't want to use the sling in
combat, the ammunition consumption isn't a penalty.
R. Dan Henry
danh...@inreach.com
R. Dan Henry
(Brent Ross) wrote:
>There are places for both... when talking shop on usenet I lean towards
>sincerity (thus being polite and simply agreeing to avoid arguement
>would be patronizing of me).
There is nothing about sincerity that requires a patronizing "um". You
are now just rationalizing your behavior; sincerity and politeness are
only opposed with regards to formalized behaviors. In actual
conversation, politeness requires *tactful* honesty. The idea that
sincerity is incompatible with politeness results in unnecessary
rudeness, which in turn *hinders* effective communication.
R. Dan Henry
danh...@inreach.com
ru
> Since you aren't submitting a patch, but building a variant, there is
> no need to minimize your code.
that's exactly my point: i was arguing that it should be a patch, not a
variant, because i didn't want to fork the game. Erik can do as he
pleases, of course.
--
ru
Brent Ross
R. Dan Henry <danh...@inreach.com> wrote:
// On Sun, 6 Feb 2005 09:06:38 +0000 (UTC), bwr...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
// (Brent Ross) wrote:
//
// >So it's a bit patronizing (but it's far from as patronizing as I could
// >have been)... but any response I can make to a hyperbolic comment like
// >"Zin sucks" [1] is going to end up being patronizing anyways ("um" or
// >not). If you ask stupid questions, you should expect stupid answers...
//
// "Zin sucks" is an *opinion*.
Alone and out of context, you might be able to say that. Back in it's
context it was being used as a statement of fact that Zin is completely
useless and unworthy of being in the game. It was more than just an
opinion, it was being used as an unfounded axiom for argueing for
various changes. My point is merely that such using such extreme
handwaving bases for an arguement isn't going to get you seriously
listened to... all you can expect is a response that's going to come of
as patronizing or dismissive.
// OTOH, if *you* like having both Zin and TSO, that's your call. Just
// realize that they really don't seem to be that popular, either as
// powerful *or* as interesting.
Boy, you seem to really be missing the point. You really should pay
more attention. Of course, I know they're not popular. I hear that all
the time. Of course, I know they're not as twinky as some other gods...
that's an undeniable and verifiable fact. And of course, I know that
they're not as interesting as they could be... I've not only seriously
played them, but I've already said that many times in this thread. My
point has simply been that both desired gods that serve different and
very valid game goals. And, sure, both do need work (but, really, the
entire religious system needs work).
Brent Ross
Jeremey Wilson
"Brent Ross" <bwr...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> wrote in message
news:cusbe6$8u9$1...@rumours.uwaterloo.ca...
> Alone and out of context, you might be able to say that. Back in it's
> context it was being used as a statement of fact that Zin is completely
> useless and unworthy of being in the game.
My opinion was very clearly stated in my first post to this thread. That is not
my opinion. You are lying. Could you lie patronizingly, do you think? That'd
impress the girls.
> It was more than just an
> opinion, it was being used as an unfounded axiom for argueing for
> various changes. My point is merely that such using such extreme
> handwaving bases for an arguement isn't going to get you seriously
> listened to... all you can expect is a response that's going to come of
> as patronizing or dismissive.
That's all anybody expects from you, Brent. Oh, and chalking up design flaws to
"role playing choices". I expect that, too.
> // OTOH, if *you* like having both Zin and TSO, that's your call. Just
> // realize that they really don't seem to be that popular, either as
> // powerful *or* as interesting.
>
> Boy, you seem to really be missing the point. You really should pay
> more attention. Of course, I know they're not popular. I hear that all
> the time. Of course, I know they're not as twinky as some other gods...
> that's an undeniable and verifiable fact.
Your difficulty may lie, again, in your inability to distinguish a "fact" from
an "opinion". Several people have tried to explain to you the differences, but
it doesn't seem to be taking. Perhaps you should pay more attention.
> And of course, I know that
> they're not as interesting as they could be... I've not only seriously
> played them, but I've already said that many times in this thread.
All of the people who accused you of not having played them are chastened, I'm
sure. But I'm not seeing them... no, google doesn't seem to archive them,
either. Maybe that has nothing to with anyone's complaints. Perhaps you should
pay more attention.
> My point has simply been that both desired gods that serve different and
> very valid game goals.
I notice that while you have very carefully quoted semi-relevant text to ignore
while constructing ad hominem arguments, others text you have studiously
ignored. Text like "When's the next version coming out? Still working on a new
version? Been two years, almost." Also ignored: "what is a 'cleric-style' of
play?" Perhaps these omissions are a result of inattention. Still, sure would
be nice to know.
> And, sure, both do need work (but, really, the
> entire religious system needs work).
Are you working on it?
--
Jeremey
Brent Ross
Jeremey Wilson <noaddre...@yahoo.com> wrote:
// I would like to apologize to everyone else for replying to this.
//
// "Brent Ross" <bwr...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> wrote in message
// news:cusbe6$8u9$1...@rumours.uwaterloo.ca...
// > Alone and out of context, you might be able to say that. Back in it's
// > context it was being used as a statement of fact that Zin is completely
// > useless and unworthy of being in the game.
//
// My opinion was very clearly stated in my first post to this thread. That is not
// my opinion. You are lying.
You're right... it was TSO you wanted to toss. The Zin sucking comment
was used by you to infer that Zin needed torment resistance... a weak
premise (being merely a hyperbolic opinion) which didn't give me any
reason to judge your opinion as any better than the average munchkin
trying to twink the game. That's at least were the conversation lead
to... using "Zin sucks" as a premise for recommending a change is
faulty, it doesn't give a basis for what needs to be changed, let alone
why. I can't take opinion as a reason for any suggestion... that's only
lead to problems in the past (problems that I end up having to refix)...
I need facts. Which brings us to here, where I still assert that if you
want to be taken seriously in your suggestions, don't back them up with
unfounded hyperbole like "Zin sucks"... I recognize that for exactly
what it is: not a fact, therefore not a premise for anything.
So I'll apologize to you for getting the original comment wrong (I was
mistaken to attribute it back to there and confused with the original
post... I was not lying intentionally... just very tired).
// Could you lie patronizingly, do you think? That'd impress the girls.
Oh, I'd never lie patronizingly.... it's not my style.
// > It was more than just an
// > opinion, it was being used as an unfounded axiom for argueing for
// > various changes. My point is merely that such using such extreme
// > handwaving bases for an arguement isn't going to get you seriously
// > listened to... all you can expect is a response that's going to come of
// > as patronizing or dismissive.
//
// That's all anybody expects from you, Brent.
Good, then I don't have to worry about coming off that way and can
just simply speak my mind.
Really, though, if it does seem like I'm being over critical at times...
just remember this, I don't have time to respond to everything, so when
I do respond, I like to give my expertise which is largely about the
code base and the design/development. This largely means correcting
flaws in assumptions about what the code does and what the intentions
were. Naturally, that's going to sound a bit condensending... but I do
it because it might be helpful. On the other hand, any "new" ideas are
typically things that have already been brought up years ago... so you
shouldn't be so surprised if I don't seem all giddy and doe eyed about
suggestions anymore and seem to mostly ignore them or only critize the
problems in them. Simply take it for what it is: a critique (hey, I
liked Darshan's patch so I made a few comments on some things in it that
were and helped make it better).
// Oh, and chalking up design flaws to "role playing choices".
// I expect that, too.
I never chalk up design flaws to role playing choices. Design flaws are
design flaws plain and simple and reworking things is something I do a
lot of. Bugs (or implementation flaws), I will occasionally dismiss as
features publically, simply because I know that it will not be fixed
immediately for some reason... either because it's part of a large
system which is full of bugs which is best tackled by redoing that
system as a whole... or simply because it makes a bit of sense and thus
has a low triage order (crawl has thousands of bugs, a lot ot which
people never see, but are still subjected to).
// > // OTOH, if *you* like having both Zin and TSO, that's your call. Just
// > // realize that they really don't seem to be that popular, either as
// > // powerful *or* as interesting.
// >
// > Boy, you seem to really be missing the point. You really should pay
// > more attention. Of course, I know they're not popular. I hear that all
// > the time. Of course, I know they're not as twinky as some other gods...
// > that's an undeniable and verifiable fact.
//
// Your difficulty may lie, again, in your inability to distinguish a "fact" from
// an "opinion".
Crawl is a game... it's not reality, but a very simplified and abstract
thing that's a bit like reality. As such, it's much easier to say
objective things about it because they are verifiable.
For example, Zin and TSO aren't popular... this is a verified fact.
I've seen a poll, and they lost hands down. And they aren't as twinky
as other gods... another very verified fact: their powers cannot be used
as freely as most gods, they have conduct restrictions (which most gods
do not), and they don't shower their followers with gifts. On the scale
of twink, they are most certainly lower. As such, can't come to
"realize" these things... I already know them as facts (and they most
certainly are facts), which was my point.
// Several people have tried to explain to you the differences, but
// it doesn't seem to be taking. Perhaps you should pay more attention.
Oh, I know the difference between the two... I just like to see people
back up their opinions with facts, so I question them. That's how a
meaningful and productive argument works.
// > And of course, I know that
// > they're not as interesting as they could be... I've not only seriously
// > played them, but I've already said that many times in this thread.
//
// All of the people who accused you of not having played them are
// chastened, I'm sure.
It doesn't matter if they are. I only brought it up again because it
was a fact that gives credence to my opinion that they aren't quite as
interesting from a roleplaying perspective as they could be. I think
the more telling thing is the fact that I'd already said as much already
in this thread. How can I be expected to "realize" something that's
already my stated opinion?
// But I'm not seeing them... no, google doesn't seem to archive them,
// either. Maybe that has nothing to with anyone's complaints. Perhaps you
// should pay more attention.
I wasn't bringing it up for the sake of anyone (or anyone's complaints)
here. It's part of the facts supporting my opinion... ignore it if you
like, the second one was the big point here.
// > My point has simply been that both desired gods that serve different and
// > very valid game goals.
//
// I notice that while you have very carefully quoted semi-relevant text
// to ignore while constructing ad hominem arguments, others text you have
// studiously ignored.
I can't respond to everything... I prefer to work on crawl rather than
respond to every little thing about it (especially when my typing time
is limited, see below). So I tend to just read some of the longer posts
and chose not to reply to them (at least not immediately).
// Text like "When's the next version coming out? Still working on a new
// version? Been two years, almost."
Yes it has... I was slowed down a bit for a while there because of a
hand operation (which is part of the reason I haven't been posting so
much... I did post early on, but the posts got a bit long and my hand
would start to swell up from the typing... so I slowed right up), but
I'm back to working on it several hours a day. I'm hoping for real soon
now.
// Also ignored: "what is a 'cleric-style' of play?"
Cleric style play is the type of play one would expect from a cleric in
a roleplaying game. Yes, that's very open ended, but that's perfectly
intentional because I haven't really looked at redesigning the religion
system yet, and so I'm still open minded to what a cleric of Zin really
should be (although, to me, the original design does follow my old
cleric favourites... healing, creeping doom, holy word). What I am
certain of is that there's certainly room for (and a very real
difference between) clerics and paladins in the game. If not simply
because of the fact that they certainly roleplay very differently under
most systems I've tried them (and I've certainly enjoyed roleplaying
both for different reasons), then simply because their should be the
choice (at least for the sake of varying the corresponding starting
classes).
// > And, sure, both do need work (but, really, the
// > entire religious system needs work).
//
// Are you working on it?
Not yet... that's been moved below the line in favour of trying to get
the basic combat/range/spell systems back together and functional for a
release. As I said elsewhere in this thread, I'm certainly open to
someone coming up with a design... but I'd like to see the entire
pantheon view, starting with listed assumptions and design goals and
building up, not just suggestions for quick isolated patches because
some god sucks or is "broken".
Brent Ross
Brent Ross
Erik Piper <efrn...@sdky.cz> wrote:
// bork bork bork Brent Ross bork 2:29:48 AM bork 2/8/2005 bork bork:
// >
// > Actually, I found Zin to be weaker than TSO... but I never had problems
// > with stabbing, since I was playing a mountain dwarf who liked to sing.
//
// Right, so now let's talk about the *dodging* (and thus stealth, and thus
// stabbing, sometimes even if they don't care about building it) races. :-)
//
// Well, the thing is that options are good; choices are good too, but choices
// forced by dull things ("I *could* play a race with decent stealth and take
// TSO, but then I'd have to check before every attack"... naaah) are IMO dull.
// If potential stabbers were simply *prevented* from stabbing when they worship
// TSO, they'd still be giving up the option of stabbing for the option of TSO,
// so it'd hardly be removing a choice from the game.
The thing is: not all gods are intended for all characters. The most
obvious example is choosing Trog with a spellcaster. But there are
others... for example, it would be a bad idea for any character who's in
to using disposable pets to join a religion like Ely, Zin, or Okawaru.
Those gods expect you to protect your followers... if you're not willing
to do that, you'll suffer. Remarkably bad choices are naturally the
providence of Loonie players.
Now, looking at TSO. We have a god who strongly expects his followers
to fight honourably. The fact that sneaky races (especially with sneaky
classes) aren't particularly good choices for joining the religion is
perfectly natural... TSO doesn't like sneaky people (that's dishonest).
Still, they are playable as an option... they just require a bit more
work (since in all such cases the character is naturally inclined
against the religion). Just imagine your spriggan paladin having to to
keep yelling to monsters, "Hey monster! I'm down here and I want to
fight you!".
As for removing stabbing... that would be removing choice from the
player. Paladins should have option to stab just as Trogites have the
option of casting spells (which is potentially a real option... eg if
you were a spellcaster before joining and have a spell like Revivification
(ie something that's very useful for rare occasions)). The best solution
is probably to prompt when a stab attempt is about to be made.
// > // * An interesting two-edged sword: a Silence invocation. An even more
// > // interesting two-edged sword: random silencing. (I'm sure some people
// > would // HATE this, and I would hate it too, but simultaneously love it.)
// >
// > Well, Silence has alway been debatable as already broken (in fact it can
// > easily be compiled out),
//
// Broken technologically or broken in terms of game design? My vote on the
// latter is that it's fairly well balanced, and I've used it a lot (this may
// however mean I'm too enamored of it to judge it fairly; you be the judge).
The latter. It completely hoses many monsters without a chance of
save... in fact it does this not just to one, but to all in LoS. Sure
it puts a similar disadvantage on the PC, but it's also pretty low level
for the effect (allowing it to be a no-brainer for many characters who
couldn't care less about the disadvantages at all). Add to this the
fact that the player is intelligent, whereas the monsters are very
stupid... they have a hard enough time in regular situations, in
unusual ones like silence fields (which there's no monster intelligence
support for at all) they can easily be exploited and abused. The
concept of the effect is good (counter spells), but the implimentation
is a bit extreme.
// Ever been jumped by a nasty who's still outside of silencing range while
// you're silenced?
Not really... because I played almost as cowardly as I did without it.
Thus I was typically backed up in a corridor with very limited FoV and
nothing really outside the silence radius (or that I couldn't duck away
from in a single move). I don't use the spell anymore... I found it too
twinky.
// > // * Another interesting two-edged sword: random berserking when fighting
// > // undead/demons.
// >
// > Goes against the lawful nature of the gods in question...
//
// Depends on your point of view -- it could also be seen as "a crusader of good
// filled with holy wrath." As I said, fighting undead/demons... a paladin type,
// especially, could themefully be in a conniption fit about 'em, along with his
// god.
The thing is that just about any effect can be rationalized like that.
It comes back to the whole school vs realm thing. Everything in Crawl
is as open as possible to allowing in characters... there are only a few
limitations on what characters can become (ie Demigods only worship
themselves). So there's nothing preventing a lawful god character from
simply using the spell, the amulet, or an artefact to berserk... so if
they want that it's easy enough to get without this, and simply better
if we make them make that choice and present things that are clearly
appropriate (ie not just flavoured versions of other peoples things) and
truly unique (ie not available elsewhere at all). Or at the very least
not viable options for the character due to restrictions (ie Regeneration
is a Necromancy spell... so an invocation of that is a more viable choice
for a god that otherwises punishes Necromancy).
// > Remove Curse has been a consideration for a long time (way back in the
// > old source it was). It's just not currently a real power... the scrolls
// > are very common, and curses just aren't currently big enough an issue...
// > Detect Curse and Abjuration are more useful.
//
// The flavorfulness was, again, the thing here.
I figured that much... just presenting the previous findings on this,
because I figured it might be of interest.
Brent Ross
R. Dan Henry
(Brent Ross) wrote:
>Cleric style play is the type of play one would expect from a cleric in
>a roleplaying game.
In *good* role-playing the play of a cleric will vary widely depending
on his religion, so this is not only unhelpful, it points out the
problem with the idea of "cleric-style" play. I am highly suspicious
that you mean "plays like a cliche D&D cleric" which is not a role I
think need preservation.
R. Dan Henry
danh...@inreach.com
Erik Piper
> In article <36rjteF...@individual.net>,
> Erik Piper <efrn...@sdky.cz> wrote:
> against the religion). Just imagine your spriggan paladin having to to
> keep yelling to monsters, "Hey monster! I'm down here and I want to
> fight you!".
Actually, that's what Stabber the High Elf Paladin did, until he got his nice
suit of heavy armour (BTW, as much as I hate to waste your energy on
producing spoilers: does a PC wearing light armour gain anything at all from
Armour skill? Does a PC wearing heavy armour gain anything at all from
Dodging? I'm confused by the spoilers, and too lazy to check that part of the
source (much though I will have to understand it backwards and forwards to
make some of the changes I'm considering).)
The trouble is, "! !" won't solve the problem of rounding a corner and having
a sleeping monster right beside it -- only "x +" does, which is a more
tedious keystroke and also demands more attention (I have to admit here -- I
have ADD, though that involves as much hyperfocusing as hypofocusing).
> As for removing stabbing... that would be removing choice from the
> player. Paladins should have option to stab just as Trogites have the
> option of casting spells (which is potentially a real option... eg if
> you were a spellcaster before joining and have a spell like Revivification
> (ie something that's very useful for rare occasions)).
Well-made point.
> The best solution is probably to prompt when a stab attempt is about to be
> made.
This would put "stealthy paladins" on par with the cases you mention of
characters who can summon, but worship "protect your friends" type gods, or
who can cast spells, but worship Trog: the choice to enter a dangerous
situation would be a conscious one, rather than a typo.
> // > // * An interesting two-edged sword: a Silence invocation. An even more
> // > // interesting two-edged sword: random silencing. (I'm sure some people
> // > would // HATE this, and I would hate it too, but simultaneously love
> it.) // >
> // > Well, Silence has alway been debatable as already broken (in fact it
> can // > easily be compiled out),
> //
> // Broken technologically or broken in terms of game design? My vote on the
> // latter is that it's fairly well balanced, and I've used it a lot (this
> may // however mean I'm too enamored of it to judge it fairly; you be the
> judge).
Sorry for the broken quoting; I try to fix it in cases where there's time,
but at the moment there isn't.
> The latter. It completely hoses many monsters without a chance of
> save... in fact it does this not just to one, but to all in LoS.
Quibble: all within silencing range.
> Sure it puts a similar disadvantage on the PC, but it's also pretty low
> level for the effect (allowing it to be a no-brainer for many characters who
> couldn't care less about the disadvantages at all).
I wouldn't say that's a consequence of the spell level -- a fighter-mage
simply doesn't need to cast spells once he's powered up, and meanwhile, he's
willing to learn quite some skill levels in Air and, especially, Enchantment
anyway, so the spell would still be attractive at level 3 or maybe even 4.
> Add to this the fact that the player is intelligent, whereas the monsters
> are very stupid... they have a hard enough time in regular situations, in
> unusual ones like silence fields (which there's no monster intelligence
> support for at all) they can easily be exploited and abused.
Then the support should be added, rather than killing an interesting spell.
> The concept of the effect is good (counter spells), but the implimentation
> is a bit extreme.
>
> // Ever been jumped by a nasty who's still outside of silencing range while
> // you're silenced?
>
> Not really... because I played almost as cowardly as I did without it.
> Thus I was typically backed up in a corridor with very limited FoV and
> nothing really outside the silence radius (or that I couldn't duck away
> from in a single move). I don't use the spell anymore... I found it too
> twinky.
Many things in the game are more powerful with wise strategic play than
without it, and that's a good thing, so there's a certain part of me that
wants to say "nuthin' wrong with that." But having used basically this
approach yesterday to clear EH7 with a 15-th level halfling, I do know what
you mean. On the *other* other hand... I didn't really find it made EH7
boring, just less terrifying. And so in that respect:
Nuthin' wrong with that.
And of course the whole "you just duck around corners a lot" argument
disappears during its use on open levels, where you definitely DON'T just
duck around corners a lot (unless you are long on Earth skill to make them
yourself).
Anyway, *random* silencing would not be twinky at all (though it might be too
frustrating), and it would certainly be thematic.
> // > // * Another interesting two-edged sword: random berserking when
> fighting // > // undead/demons.
> // >
> // > Goes against the lawful nature of the gods in question...
> //
> // Depends on your point of view -- it could also be seen as "a crusader of
> good // filled with holy wrath." As I said, fighting undead/demons... a
> paladin type, // especially, could themefully be in a conniption fit about
> 'em, along with his // god.
>
> The thing is that just about any effect can be rationalized like that.
(Unlike, say, rationalizing Zin's/TSO's weakness by saying "they're for
roleplayers and I don't care if almost nobody but me plays them due to their
weakness, because !weak automatically = twinky?"
Ahem.
Sometimes, Brent, you can be wrong. I don't want to be part of the dogpile
piling on you in recent weeks, but... sometimes, Brent, you can be wrong, and
I sincerely believe you're wrong about lack of flavor being the only problem
with Zin/TSO that doesn't involve everyone in the universe but you being a
munchkin. OK, back on topic...)
I wasn't looking for rationalization, but for the very flavor that you're
saying they're lacking. I really don't see it as out of line with these guys
at all.
> It comes back to the whole school vs realm thing. Everything in Crawl is as
> open as possible to allowing in characters... there are only a few
> limitations on what characters can become (ie Demigods only worship
> themselves).
Losing me here, but that's not really important (see below).
> So there's nothing preventing a lawful god character from
> simply using the spell, the amulet, or an artefact to berserk... so if
> they want that it's easy enough to get without this, and simply better
> if we make them make that choice and present things that are clearly
> appropriate (ie not just flavoured versions of other peoples things)
"Ownership" of a god power is relative. God traits/powersare not isolated
units, they form systems; thus, there are plenty of god traits/powers that,
in isolation, match other powers, but within the system for that god, work
differently than within another god's system. Since I've been playing metric
buttloads of Elyvilonites lately, and in light of the new insights you gave
me on him:
Elyvilon is not the only god to grant protection during prayer, but since you
have to think thrice before praying, it's certainly not "the same as" another
god's protection during prayer, and in the theoretical case where only one
other god provided it, one could say that Elyvilon "owns" pacificist prayer
protection, and the other god "owns" agressivist prayer protection.
Elyvilon owns ultra-cheap healing; one other god could own less economic
healing with no "conflicts." (The fact that in fact two (three?) other gods
own it is more problematic.)
So just seeing the word "berserk" is not enough to say "that's Trog domain"
unless the functioning of that berserking in the system is boringly similar
to Trog's functioning. Random berserking (though, again, perhaps too annoying
for the player) is not "another Trog," at all. Expensive, situational
berserking, also would not be. I'm sure there are other examples.
> and truly unique (ie not available elsewhere at all).
Units of a god's trait/power set (not just units as they function in a god's
system) that are unique are the holy grail, but not every trait/power needs
to meet that holy grail.
> Or at the very least
> not viable options for the character due to restrictions (ie Regeneration
> is a Necromancy spell... so an invocation of that is a more viable choice
> for a god that otherwises punishes Necromancy).
Well, to me it would be more viable in that is vastly more USEFUL in the wide
range of situations that don't involve demons/undead than most existing
Zin/TSO powers are (and this includes Smiting, unless you're really hurting
for sources of ranged damage... and yes, I have played paladins recently),
while still being thematic. Go for it, I say.
[...]
Thanks for the discussion, and sorry if I seem a bit harsh above... some of
the things you've said have peeved me, and I let off a bit of steam.
Erik
Jeremey Wilson
"Erik Piper" <efrn...@sdky.cz> wrote in message
news:37ji7tF...@individual.net...
> bork bork bork Brent Ross bork 4:16:49 AM bork 2/17/2005 bork bork:
IDHTSIFOM, but I think this is right:
> Actually, that's what Stabber the High Elf Paladin did, until he got his nice
> suit of heavy armour (BTW, as much as I hate to waste your energy on
> producing spoilers: does a PC wearing light armour gain anything at all from
> Armour skill?
The reduction in the EV penalty still applies, and armor skill reduces the speed
penalties to unarmed combat you get for wearing armor with an evasion penalty.
I think that's it.
Does a PC wearing heavy armour gain anything at all from
> Dodging?
Yes. Wearing heavy armor means you lose 1/4 of your evasion bonus from Dodging.
As I understand it, you can get the rest back through gaining armor skill. This
never seems to quite work out when I'm playing, but I'm not sure why.
[...]
> Thanks for the discussion, and sorry if I seem a bit harsh above... some of
> the things you've said have peeved me, and I let off a bit of steam.
I mean this sincerely: you're the nicest person on Usenet. It freaks me out, a
little.
--
Jeremey
Erik Piper
>
> "Erik Piper" <efrn...@sdky.cz> wrote in message
> > Thanks for the discussion, and sorry if I seem a bit harsh above... some
> > of the things you've said have peeved me, and I let off a bit of steam.
>
> I mean this sincerely: you're the nicest person on Usenet. It freaks me
> out, a little.
Making friends and avoiding arrogance means you can get away with being
wrong... something which is very useful on Usenet, where we are all in a
hurry and all tend to be wrong quite often.
And... thanks (for the spoiler as well). ;-)
Erik
Brent Ross
// (Brent Ross) wrote:
//
// >a roleplaying game.
//
// In *good* role-playing the play of a cleric will vary widely depending
// on his religion,
In AD&D, the standard template was for "cleric", with priests of a
specific mythoi being pretty much a footnote in the base player's guide.
Of course, today, it's pretty much the other way around... you select a
god and a domaine and play whatever your god happens to call his
followers. In any case, I'm talking about Cleric clerics, not any old
cleric... the traditional sense of the priest class and the way it
used to play, sans all the fancy gods.
// so this is not only unhelpful, it points out the problem with the idea
// of "cleric -style" play.
Not really... it only points to the fact that I'm not focusing on the
religous system yet. If I was, I'd better define the domaine beyond
"some sort of lawful good/wisdom/priest/cleric class thing", because
the first thing I'd be doing is defining those domaines (for all the
gods).
// I am highly suspicious that you mean "plays
// like a cliche D&D cleric" which is not a role I think need preservation.
You may not think it needs preservation, however, most of the
traditional big RLs have a Priest class that are based very much on this
stereotype (ie Moria/Angband, Nethack (more so now that the monk priest
aspects are now pulled into a monk class)). Some of us like playing
those classes, and the way we do that in Crawl is via a god (namely
Zin). Of course, the openness of Crawl's design puts limits on how much
we can really do with a god (as religion is a universal add on
system)... so it can't be as completely immersive as a class/realm based
game can achieve (because they have exclusivity), but that hardly means
that we should toss out the baby.
Brent Ross
Brent Ross
Erik Piper <efrn...@sdky.cz> wrote:
// bork bork bork Brent Ross bork 4:16:49 AM bork 2/17/2005 bork bork:
//
// > In article <36rjteF...@individual.net>,// > against the religion). Just imagine your spriggan paladin having to to
// > keep yelling to monsters, "Hey monster! I'm down here and I want to
// > fight you!".
//
// The trouble is, "! !" won't solve the problem of rounding a corner and having
// a sleeping monster right beside it -- only "x +" does, which is a more
// tedious keystroke and also demands more attention
That's not the only solution... my general solution was to let monsters
show me that they were attentive, either by attacking me or moving
towards me (applying shouts as needed). In this case, I would have
stepped back and waited to see if the monster followed (as it's far less
tedious than examining, and I'm typically willing to take the food and
time cost as tradeoff for convenience).
// > The latter. It completely hoses many monsters without a chance of
// > save... in fact it does this not just to one, but to all in LoS.
//
// Quibble: all within silencing range.
True... it's just that the player can be relied upon to limit that as
a disadvantage to practically nil. When looking at balancing the game
from a design point of view you need to be careful about limitations
which aren't really limitations (and thus are worth no points).
// > Sure it puts a similar disadvantage on the PC, but it's also pretty low
// > level for the effect (allowing it to be a no-brainer for many characters who
// > couldn't care less about the disadvantages at all).
//
// I wouldn't say that's a consequence of the spell level -- a fighter-mage
// simply doesn't need to cast spells once he's powered up, and meanwhile, he's
// willing to learn quite some skill levels in Air and, especially, Enchantment
// anyway, so the spell would still be attractive at level 3 or maybe even 4.
The spell level is very important when it comes to access to the spell.
I often play in a fighter-mage style, with limited concentration on
spellcasting skills... a load up on tonnes of level 1-3 spells and a few
useful level 4s simply bacause I don't have to go far out of my way to
get those and they can be useful.
// > Add to this the fact that the player is intelligent, whereas the monsters
// > are very stupid... they have a hard enough time in regular situations, in
// > unusual ones like silence fields (which there's no monster intelligence
// > support for at all) they can easily be exploited and abused.
//
// Then the support should be added, rather than killing an interesting spell.
Everytime I touch the behaviour/intelligence code the game becomes very
unstable or broken in some way. Equally bad or broken behaviours pop
out, and mysterious crashes start randomly occuring for months. It's
very dangerous code to mess with in general, and adding intelligent
behaviour like dealing with silence (or fleeing to maximize one's
out of LoS chances) isn't exactly trivial to add anyways.
As for the spell... it's not that the spell itself is interesting, it's
the effect. As currently implemented, it probably deserves to be a
high level spell (it certainly is pretty cherry, maybe even school
definitive)... if it belongs in the game at all. The general effect,
on the other hand, might be better implemented to fill the current
intent of the silence spell (fighter mage accessible counter magic)
without being as overwhelming...
// > The concept of the effect is good (counter spells), but the implimentation
// > is a bit extreme.
... which was my point here.
// > // Ever been jumped by a nasty who's still outside of silencing range while
// > // you're silenced?
// >
// > Not really... because I played almost as cowardly as I did without it.
//
// Many things in the game are more powerful with wise strategic play than
// without it, and that's a good thing, so there's a certain part of me that
// wants to say "nuthin' wrong with that."
The issue here is simply that there's a reliable and freely available
way to make this limitation practically not a limitation. From a design
point of view, it's unwise to balance things against bad play. You need
to know that the costs always apply before handing out the big benefits.
// And of course the whole "you just duck around corners a lot" argument
// disappears during its use on open levels, where you definitely DON'T just
// duck around corners a lot (unless you are long on Earth skill to make them
// yourself).
//
// Anyway, *random* silencing would not be twinky at all (though it might be too
// frustrating), and it would certainly be thematic.
As I stated before, you can make anything thematic is you really want
to (if there's one thing the spell realms of Zangband taught me, that's
it).
Personally, I don't like to think of Zin and TSO as random gods who
occasionally go around inforcing vows of silence around their followers
for no reason. That sounds more like a capricious chaos god thing
(hmmm... random Xom silencing...). Zin and TSO do have a bit of a
dislike for chaos/destruction and unholy established (go figure, the
opposites of lawful and good)... but I don't think that that means we
should extend that to a strong dislike of all things magic.
// > // > // * Another interesting two-edged sword: random berserking when
// > fighting // > // undead/demons.
// > // >
// > // > Goes against the lawful nature of the gods in question...
// > //
// > // Depends on your point of view -- it could also be seen as "a crusader of
// > good // filled with holy wrath." As I said, fighting undead/demons... a
// > paladin type, // especially, could themefully be in a conniption fit about
// > 'em, along with his // god.
// >
// > The thing is that just about any effect can be rationalized like that.
//
// (Unlike, say, rationalizing Zin's/TSO's weakness by saying "they're for
// roleplayers and I don't care if almost nobody but me plays them due to their
// weakness, because !weak automatically = twinky?"
You're starting to create a bit of a strawman there by glossing points
and combining them out of context.
It's not that I'm rationalizing their weakness at all... as I've stated,
there are problems throughout the religous system simply because it's
fallen out of step with changes which have been happening elsewhere
(most notably, conjuring is a lot better now than it used to be and
these invocations are mostly not a part of that code... unlike Makhleb's
destruction abilities). I've admitted that I know they are weak, but my
statement's against that issue mostly come against the hyperbolic argument
that they completely suck, and that weakness and lack of popularity are
the key reasons that need to be addressed.
The thing is that the gods in Crawl are not intended to be equal in
power, that would be difficult to accomplish and would lead to most
of the gods becoming more and more similar. Zin and TSO simply
cannot be as powerful as some other gods for very simple reasons...
they are not big piety farms, which changes the style of how they
are played, and that's a very desirable feature that I'm not willing
to simply throw out and create Zinkleb and TSOmet for.
Next, it's not a matter of !weak == twinky, so much as it's
popular == twinky. This is just a normal natural thing... most players
want to win, and having not won already, play convervative powerful lines.
Thus, less powerful gods are never going to be as popular as the
more powerful ones... which makes argumentum ad populum a very real
fallacy in the world of game design. It doesn't matter if the
majority doesn't find something interesting, all that really matters
is if it's interesting to the target minority.
Which brings us to why Zin and TSO really need fixing. It's not simply
because they're weak (that's part of a larger problem that pervades the
entire system and otehr parts of the game). Responding simply to that
with a quick patch has traditionally just caused more balance
disruptions (and mindlessly responding to the loud majority typically
leads to the game spiralling to twinkier and twinkier levels... it's
important to be able to say no sometimes, and examine things throughly
on the others). And it's not because they're not popular in general...
we don't expect that to ever be the case. It's simply in that they're
not as interesting in their role as they could be... and their role is
as "class" gods (like Xom), not as "enhancer" (like Vehumet) or "hole
filler" (like Makhleb) gods (both types of which will always be more
popular on principle). The key redesign goal isn't to make them
powerful or popular, but simply to make them more better representatives
of the "cleric" and "paladin" classes for the sake of the people who
want to play those roles. If that condition is met, the others don't
matter (although, increased power and popularity are likely side
effects... they are not goals, as equivalent power to the twinkiest
god is unlikely, as is a 1/12th follower share). That's my point.
// I wasn't looking for rationalization, but for the very flavor that you're
// saying they're lacking. I really don't see it as out of line with these guys
// at all.
The thing is that anything can be made "in line" for these guys. Zin
"blessing" demons into enforced "purified" slaves for the PC or TSO
ressurecting fallen soldiers into holy warriors. However, the number of
things you can can is very limited... and the design of Crawl has a
strong preference for reduced redundancy. Combined, this just means
that even though you can make an argument for silence being being
appropriate, it's actually very flimsy and should be tossed out on the
first triage in favour of things that are rock solid and unique
representatives, not just shoe horned flavours of other stuff.
// > So there's nothing preventing a lawful god character from
// > simply using the spell, the amulet, or an artefact to berserk... so if
// > they want that it's easy enough to get without this, and simply better
// > if we make them make that choice and present things that are clearly
// > appropriate (ie not just flavoured versions of other peoples things)
//
// "Ownership" of a god power is relative. God traits/powersare not isolated
// units, they form systems; thus, there are plenty of god traits/powers that,
// in isolation, match other powers, but within the system for that god, work
// differently than within another god's system. Since I've been playing metric
// buttloads of Elyvilonites lately, and in light of the new insights you gave
// me on him:
//
// Elyvilon is not the only god to grant protection during prayer, but since you
// have to think thrice before praying, it's certainly not "the same as" another
// god's protection during prayer, and in the theoretical case where only one
// other god provided it, one could say that Elyvilon "owns" pacificist prayer
// protection, and the other god "owns" agressivist prayer protection.
None of the other 5 gods "owns" aggressivist prayer protection. Xom
owns capricious protection, and the other 4 have "universal, no brainer"
protection. Trog, is any god, has the closest thing to aggressive
"protection", as berserk gives HPs and speed while requiring that the
player really attack... the other protection gods require no such thing,
only that you hit 'p' everytime your prayer runs out (with no negative
side effects for ever doing so). That's a big problem that needs some
real work in my books, and the gods involved should either be giving up
on that or be changed so that it's not a no-brainer (but also not exactly
Elyvion either).
// Elyvilon owns ultra-cheap healing; one other god could own less economic
// healing with no "conflicts." (The fact that in fact two (three?) other gods
// own it is more problematic.)
The other gods involved in the healing game have been kept intentionally
weaker than Elyvilon (because Ely's domain is very clearly "healing").
Zin and Okawaru get a reduced, more expensive bottom level heal, and the
bigger ones are left to Ely alone. It is a bit redundant that Okawaru
has it (partially because one would normally think that paladins would
get that (as a lawful good fighter god), and Okawaru should possibly be
more of a lawful neutral fighter god to avoid confict there... however,
that would mean universal healing across the three good gods, and we
prefer to limit things to at most two out of the three to keep them
different).
Xom and Nemelex also have healing in random forms... but such is their
chaotic nature that it's appropriate and not seriously redundant (or
perhaps we sould be talking about merging these two chaotic neutral gods
into one instead... Nemelex Xombeh, all the random chaos domaine in a
single package).
// So just seeing the word "berserk" is not enough to say "that's Trog domain"
// unless the functioning of that berserking in the system is boringly similar
// to Trog's functioning.
If it was just Trog there would be less of an issue. Polytheism is
simply not allowed and that exclusivity makes it reasonable for a few
things to conditionally be offered twice. However, berserk is also
freely available as a spell (open to all but trogites... which helps
support Trog's claim against redundancy, that and the Berserker class
being a desirable thing to offer), a potion (in limited amounts), an
amulet (as much as wanted, after finding one), from random artefacts
(not that uncommon since there are two ways to get it... evoke or random
on attack), as a random gift from Xom or Nemelex (unreliable, but you
get the version with the attack limitation), and as a mutation (albeit
that is fairly undesirable to most characters). Why should we waste a
valuable ability slot on a second god when berserk is practically
ubiquitous? Why not use our creative juices to come up with something
that's unique, interesting, and more directly appropriate?
(Actually, I expect the answer in your case might be that you're not
a serious coder (and Crawl source is scary even to those who are) and
thus are thinking in terms of what you can easily copy or call in the
source... From my point of view, the options are much larger... although
still somewhat limited in that I know of things that would be problematic
to implement given the current code).
// Random berserking (though, again, perhaps too annoying
// for the player) is not "another Trog," at all. Expensive, situational
// berserking, also would not be. I'm sure there are other examples.
//
// > and truly unique (ie not available elsewhere at all).
//
// Units of a god's trait/power set (not just units as they function in a god's
// system) that are unique are the holy grail, but not every trait/power needs
// to meet that holy grail.
Given the number of available slots, one would think that the percentage
could (and should) be very high. We're not giving out dozens of
abilities to each god, we only need to think up a handful for each... a
substantial majority could easily be made unique (especially by not
giving spell equivalents, or making such things rare, difficult, or
far from as good).
// > Or at the very least
// > not viable options for the character due to restrictions (ie Regeneration
// > is a Necromancy spell... so an invocation of that is a more viable choice
// > for a god that otherwises punishes Necromancy).
//
// Well, to me it would be more viable in that is vastly more USEFUL in the wide
// range of situations that don't involve demons/undead than most existing
// Zin/TSO powers are
That's not really a strong consideration for Zin or TSO stuff (being
effective outside of demon/undead stuff). Being lawful good gods, with
a stated war on such unholy things it's natural to expect help help
there, but against neutral "innocent" creatures it's also reasonable to
expect the abilities to be given to be more lacking. In short, if they
end up being equivalent to "no god" outside of fighting evil it'd be
perfectly acceptible (after all, gods should ideally help with a single
aspect of play and leave other aspects for the PC to fill in with other
things).
In this case, that doesn't really apply since it's a self targeted
effect... however, regeneration is already pretty commonly available in
the game (in usable item forms), so it's also not an A-list choice
(also, priest/paladin healing is traditionally more of a laying on of
hands, instant, after the fact deal... in fact, Necromancy has regen
specifically because it does healing in a different way with unique
conditions attached)... merely a better choice.
// (and this includes Smiting, unless you're really hurting
// for sources of ranged damage... and yes, I have played paladins recently),
Smiting is patently better than most forms of ranged damage... doesn't
require a clean firing line, no dodging, no deflection, no resisting,
raw damage. It was, however, clocked back to match spell levels at a
point a long while back, and never really clocked back up with them
(although the orginal values would still be insane... the proper level
is somewhere in between). It's still reasonable for use, however... it
just requires an additional hit or two on big targets (and since you can
do this over blockers that can often be arranged).
// Thanks for the discussion, and sorry if I seem a bit harsh above... some of
// the things you've said have peeved me, and I let off a bit of steam.
Don't worry about it. I'm used to being misunderstood on Usenet (my
mystic powers at reading people and clearing things up on the fly
simply don't work here).
Brent Ross