Club stabbing (was: Elyvilon Reform)

[mechanicalmaniac]

Oh and also no more clubstabbing.

RIP in peace clubstabbing
we hardly new ye

[Sar]

Let's be honest here: do you think you would ever notice clubstabbing exists if you didn't read about it somewhere?

[mechanicalmaniac]

Let's be honest here: do you think you would ever notice clubstabbing exists if you didn't read about it somewhere?

̶H̶e̶n̶c̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶"̶w̶e̶ ̶h̶a̶r̶d̶l̶y̶ ̶k̶n̶e̶w̶ ̶y̶e̶"̶

Actually, I did.

[and into]

I don't see how club-stabbing offered much of a play style (unorthodox or otherwise).

Even though it looks like Ely has been improved (great work, devs!) maybe it would be nice to keep this thread somewhat on track with posts like crate's, where people give feedback about new Ely?

[mechanicalmaniac]

I don't see how club-stabbing offered much of a play style (unorthodox or otherwise).

It doesn't offer a playstyle in and of itself so much as it makes the stabber playstyle more interesting.

[Sar]

"I can hit this sleeping monster with a dagger and instakill it or I can hit it with a club and maybe that will confuse it for a turn or two... decisions, decisions"

[mechanicalmaniac]

"I can hit this sleeping hill giant with a dagger and maybe instakill it or maybe wake it up and have it instakill me with its giant spiked club, or I can hit it with a club to stun it and buy some time." There are uses for it. Without it, and without being throwable or snake-able, clubs are nigh useless.

When faced with an not-very-interesting feature, the Dev Team tends to say "Let's excise this tumor," rather than "Let's improve this and make more interesting."

[Lasty]

"I can hit this sleeping hill giant with a dagger and maybe instakill it or maybe wake it up and have it instakill me with its giant spiked club, or I can hit it with a club to stun it and buy some time." There are uses for it. Without it, and without being throwable or snake-able, clubs are nigh useless.

When faced with an not-very-interesting feature, the Dev Team tends to say "Let's excise this tumor," rather than "Let's improve this and make more interesting."

Sar's logic is almost exactly the logic used in deciding to eliminate clubstabbing. From a practical perspective, there's no reason not to go for the insta-kill on monsters that are reasonable stabbing victims. If you're walking up next to a sleeping hill giant, you're already risking being hit by its GSC. If you can't take one hit from it and also you didn't train enough Stealth/SBl to guarantee the instant kill, then why did you walk up to it in the first place?

Tumors are generally better excised than decorated and made more interesting.

[njvack]

Mod note: moved club stabbing to its own topic; ely is not clubs

[Sar]

"I can hit this sleeping hill giant with a dagger and maybe instakill it or maybe wake it up and have it instakill me with its giant spiked club, or I can hit it with a club to stun it and buy some time."

Or you can, I dunno, take a step away from it and walk away? Seems a bit more reasonable to me than hoping that confusion thing procs (remember, it doesn't last as long as actual confusion) but what do I know

[mechanicalmaniac]

Tumors are generally better excised than decorated and made more interesting.

See, now you're taking for granted that clubstabbing is a tumor. This is exactly what I'm talking about. Clubstabbing could, I think, be made into a fully-fleshed-out feature, an appendage, not a tumor okay maybe this analogy is falling apart

Seems a bit more reasonable to me than hoping that confusion thing procs (remember, it doesn't last as long as actual confusion) but what do I know

Which is why it should be improved.

[njvack]

Clubstabbing could, I think, be made into a fully-fleshed-out feature, appendage, not a tumor.

Y'know what? It still could. Just because a feature is gone doesn't mean it can't return in any form ever.

Right now, this was kind of an edge case that wasn't widely-known or very useful and added code complexity. If there's a good proposal to make it into an interesting feature, maybe it would get implemented. But there isn't one (that I know of) at the current time.

[Giant Orange Brainbow Dash]

The only alternative I can think of that I might occasionally prefer over the dagger's instakill would be for clubs to inflict a "knocked out" status; the monster becomes a hallway-blocking meatlump, delaying everyone else beyond it, and is guaranteed not to wake up for at least 20 turns. The idea of an unconscious killer bee stopping a hill giant is more than a little silly, and converting monsters into transparent walls that don't block smite-targeting seems like a cheap tactic, but hey, it's no more OP than Conjure Flame.

[nicolae]

"I can hit this sleeping hill giant with a dagger and maybe instakill it or maybe wake it up and have it instakill me with its giant spiked club, or I can hit it with a club to stun it and buy some time." There are uses for it. Without it, and without being throwable or snake-able, clubs are nigh useless.

When faced with an not-very-interesting feature, the Dev Team tends to say "Let's excise this tumor," rather than "Let's improve this and make more interesting."

Why is it that the people who insist that uninteresting features be improved rather than removed are almost never the ones who would actually be responsible for designing, implementing, and testing those improvements?

[Sar]

Because those are the easy parts. Unless you are stupid and uncreative, in which case, why are you even a developer?

[duvessa]

[comebackshane]

There used to be a message here, but I figured I'd rather replace it with a link to relaxing music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf5_eeoSBns

[mikee]

This is a good example of the value of experiential knowledge over theorycrafting. If you were to read about clubstabbing on the wiki or whatever it might sound pretty cool, but if you were to play or even spectate a game that relies heavily on clubstabbing for, well, anything, you would probably find it difficult to imagine it being good, balanced, and fun. And why would you want anything in a game if it's not all of those things?