On Mon, 6 Jun 2011, Adam Borowski wrote:
> Here's a number of proposed changes to Crawl gods. Including a deicide!
Yay!
> Trog
> ====
>
> He's in a dire need of a severe nerf. Tourney0.8 had nearly thrice as many
> berserkers as the second most popular class.
>
> Proposal:
> * let's reduce berserk speed boost to haste levels: ×1.5 instead of ×2
> * perhaps we could reduce the slaying you get below might levels too?
> * no-combat penalty needs to be greatly increased. Let's revert 06efac65
> which halved them compared to 0.6 and 0.7. Galehar proposes to tie this
> to whether you're moving towards or away from enemies, too.
Agree with analysis. It is good to make berserk speed use the ordinary
effect, also for consistency. By the same token, I'd suggest to keep
berserk might as it is.
Some non-combat penalties should come back. Raphael suggested
auto-mesmerisation (cannot walk away from closest enemy) but that may be
too strong. Under Trog, we can use piety hits for cowards.
> * gifts: currently Trog gives a mixture of regular items, randarts and
> unrands. His randarts are greatly better than those Okawaru gives.
> Let's give only ordinary gear, all branded with antimagic. Weapon
> blessing was considered, but it'd make him too much like TSO, Kiku and
> Lugonu. We can make him grant you weapons based on your skills and piety:
> * an antimagic hand axe at Axes 5, *** piety
> * an antimagic war axe at Axes 10, ***** piety
> * an antimagic broad axe at Axes 15, ****** piety
I am not so fond on fixating on a weapon type. Heck, I am not so fond on
weapon gifts at all. What about dropping them? (Reasoning: Trog is the god
of simplistic carnage, but he expects you to bring a club. If you need a
club, please check out the competition.) If we want to keep weapon gifts,
I'd support giving them all the antimagic brand.
> Okawaru
> =======
>
> 0.8 changes were good, he's no longer the default god -- and is somewhat
> less boring as well. Gifts for popcorn are a problem, though -- places like
> Orc or Hive are a promised land, with tons of cheap kills and corpses.
>
> Let's tie his gifts to Ash tiers. Because of how gift timeout works, it'd
> be simpler to use this for piety gains as well. Instead of a nearly fixed
> reward per kill and a fixed reward per corpse, let's give instead tier²: 0
> for trivial, 1 for easy, 4 for tough, 9 for nasty. Or perhaps even with no
> gain for "easy" opponents as well.
Yes, Okawaru was supposed to be more sophisticated about sacrifices.
Please let me mention my gift idea for Okawaru: instead of just slapping
down items, you have to _earn_ them (this will fit with the tiers nicely).
Okawaru drops items and you are free to use them, but they're temporary.
At high tension (and/or with sufficient piety cost?), Okawaru may
permanentify a worn/wielded gift.
In addition would Okawaru be able to improve bad items (including
randarts) in its AC value. This would also require wearing them for some
time. This way you can try to turn that -7 CPM of rElec rF into something
better.
Both of these would increase the number of choices and give a much better
sense of attachment, in my opinion.
> Makhleb
> =======
>
> I don't think recently making him worthless for casters was a good idea.
I agree and I was a bit sad to see Makhleb go from all-purpose-god to
niche deity.
> Sifumet
> =======
>
> There's little difference between Sif Muna and Vehumet. Both have mostly
> the same portfolio and similar abilities. Let's merge them. The new god
> would be named "Sif Muna" since she actually has a theme. Vehumet -- "god
> of destruction and mayhem" -- come on, really?
I have never seen this proposal, but I support it. There have been ideas
for Vehumet in the past, but as usual, if we feel we need a dedicated
ranged-combat-god (which is what I had in mind for Vehumet), we can add it
any time we want. I always disliked the Vehumet background consisting of
"support two spell schools", so off with his head!
Also agree that Sif is the one with some actual flavour.
> Real differences:
> +Sif Muna: wider selection of books
> +Vehumet: +1 range in conjurations
>
> My proposal:
> * god's name: "Sif Muna"
Agree.
> * Sif Muna's book gifts. With jpeg's randart book code, it's different
> from scroll acquirement, while Vehumet's way is a copy of Kikubaaqudgha.
> There are more drastic proposals like a virtual library, but for now,
> let's try a small change.
> * piety for XP assigned to magical skills
> * [passive] faster mana regeneration
> * [passive] reduced cost of high level spells
> * [passive] increased range of all spells (+Apportation, +Dig)
All okay, although I am bit unsure about reduced cost of high level
spells.
> One of:
> * [passive] some miscast protection or wizardry
> * [invocation] "Channel Magic": greatly improved mana regen, halved cost of
> all spells, wizardry bonus. Ie, "Sif's Hand".
Problem with an invocation is that Sif does not require training
Invocations so far. I like the idea of miscast protection better than
wizardry, that way different schools keep different threat levels
(regarding their miscast effects).
> Dpeg really hates traditional channeling, so I guess that's off the table :p
Too generous channeling makes casters not die when they should and then
players complain about casters being stronger than fighters. Linley's MP
cap on 50 was a stroke of genius, we should try not to water down this too
much, is all :)
> Cheibriados
> ===========
>
> Ponderifying armour leads to problems with races that have fewer slots, it
> also causes theme problems like "why would heavy gloves impact my walking
> speed but not fighting/casting?".
>
> Proposal:
> * let's axe ponderification, reducing the brand to just to something bad
> highly enchanted plates can be generated with.
> * give CB two invocations: "Slow down" and "Hurry up". When used, they take
> some time to happen -- you don't expect CB to act quickly, do you? Even
> abandoning the god doesn't let you shed the slowness away instantly when
> in an emergency, your speed will take a while to creep back to normal.
>
> This would solve both races with few slots, and theme problems.
> There is a concern, though: you'd be able to use artefact armour, and I'm
> not sure if we want to take away this downside of CB.
I am not sure here. Your proposal would work. If we want to keep it closer
to the current version, then Cheibriados could provide unenchantable no-AC
items for unusable slots ("Cheibriados' Wristband" etc.) This would also
give some followers to look for (in religious terms) during the mid-game
-- just like a human has to find all the armour pieces.
> Xom
> ===
>
> Currently worse than GOD_NO_GOD. You suffer him all the time, many of his
> acts being permanently detrimental, while goodies are mostly temporary and
> never happen when you could actually use them.
Let me recap how I see the Xom incarnations:
Old Xom (4b26): tactical effects are almost always detrimental; play Xom
for lucky gifts and long term appeal (mutations).
New Xom: tactical effects should (a) only occur when useful (tension
originates there!) and (b) mostly be positive. I think we screwed up (b),
because even a distribution of 60% good vs 40% bad tactical effects would
constitute an uphill battle. However, you can see some of this with
current Xom: turn around the corner, see bad guys, have Xom do something
cool like summon demon, give might etc.
I guess we should make good tactical effects more likely.
> In the past, you received Xom armour, today, all you can do is have a
> high-level mummy sit in the temple, scumming for gifts.
Blech :)
> Proposal:
> * let's remove Xom ticks, making him check tension every turn. The chances
> of acting would greatly increase when there's action around, without
> affecting whether the act is good or bad.
Yes.
> * reduce or remove draining and stat loss, it's most of what he does
Yes, both are not so interesting (more so the draining).
Should mention the long list of Xom ideas to interested parties from time
to time.
> Nemelex
> =======
>
> I recently added a powerful card to the deck of destruction, in some cases
> it is brokenly good. I don't care much for annihilating statues you find in
> completely open areas, but it might be too good elsewhere as well.
> Please test.
Didn't test, but the fireworks are awesome!
> Proposal:
> * let's do more such changes to the deck of Torment
> * decks of summoning, though, could use a chance of hostiles even at higher
> levels. Currently emptying 1-2 legendary decks does Zot:5 without you
> lifting a finger.
Yes. When Haran and I redid Nemelex, we improved matters on a global
level, I believe (the deck manipulation effects, for example), but card
and deck balance has never been systematically investigated.
In general, all decks should contain risky effects, no matter what
Evocations and piety you have. Furthermore, rarer decks should have higher
risks.
> The Shining One
> ===============
>
> So we have a god that's all-powerful in the late game but utterly useless
> in early and midgame. With removal of Paladins, there's no reason to take
> him before the God Switch Time -- you won't have piety anyway.
Good point. I believe that TSO has too much flavour to just scrap him. I
also like the concept of coming from Elyvilon or Zin and going to TSO. I
agree that making him less all-powerful in the end and more useful early
on is a good idea.
> No concrete proposal here, yet, merely a vague idea:
> dragons, hydras, giant, winged serpents (zmeys), basilisks,
> amphisbaenas could be added to monsters dispatching whom TSO rewards,
> while demonic popcorn considered "too lowly to be anything beyond your
> regular duty".
Would require a bit of re-theming (nothing particularly hard).
Another random idea: TSO could support the first kill (or the first three)
of a new species/genus.
Awesome ideas, many thanks for sharing!
David
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