ANOTHER nerf to casters

[rockygargoyle]

http://git.develz.org/?p=crawl.git;a=co ... 2d774062ee

[Berder]

[Sandman25]

I am glad it was removed. Those were not casters, they were cheaters.

[bel]

About time.

[Sandman25]

This what I meant by the way, entering a new level of zig.

  Code:

There is an empty arch of ancient stone here.
Cast which spell? (? or * to list)
Aiming: Singularity
Press: ? - help, Dir - move target cursor
Space collapses on itself with a satisfying crunch.
You hear a roar! x3
You hear a shout! You hear an angry buzzing noise. You hear a shout!
You hear a roar! x2
You hear a chilling moan. You hear a roar! You hear a roar! You hear a roar!
You hear a croak. You hear a roar! You hear an angry buzzing noise.
You hear an angry hiss. You hear a roar! You hear an angry buzzing noise.
You hear a roar! You hear a chilling moan. You hear a roar!
You hear a shout! You hear a loud, deep croak! You hear a roar!
You hear a loud, deep croak! x2
You hear a chilling moan. You hear a roar! You hear a roar!
You hear a loud, deep croak! You hear a roar!
You feel a bit more experienced. x6
You feel a bit more experienced. x12
You feel a bit more experienced. x8
You feel a bit more experienced. x5
You feel a bit more experienced. x4
You feel a bit more experienced. x3
You feel a bit more experienced.

I killed 39 monsters by a single cast of singularity and I still don't know whom I am "fighting".

[tasonir]

That's it, it's over, everyone back to .16. We're holding a party on the moon troll base, everyone will be given moon troll leather armor, and we'll make geometric patterns with our singularities. Bring everything you can apport, refreshments will be arriving promptly at 3pm through the passages of Golubria which have already been set up. Please do not use these portals for personal transportation - it is not fashionable to use anything less than controlled blink, and you wouldn't want to be a scrub at a translocations party, would you?

[tasonir]

This what I meant by the way, entering a new level of zig.

  Code:

There is an empty arch of ancient stone here.
Cast which spell? (? or * to list)
Aiming: Singularity
Press: ? - help, Dir - move target cursor
Space collapses on itself with a satisfying crunch.
You hear a roar! x3
You hear a shout! You hear an angry buzzing noise. You hear a shout!
You hear a roar! x2
You hear a chilling moan. You hear a roar! You hear a roar! You hear a roar!
You hear a croak. You hear a roar! You hear an angry buzzing noise.
You hear an angry hiss. You hear a roar! You hear an angry buzzing noise.
You hear a roar! You hear a chilling moan. You hear a roar!
You hear a shout! You hear a loud, deep croak! You hear a roar!
You hear a loud, deep croak! x2
You hear a chilling moan. You hear a roar! You hear a roar!
You hear a loud, deep croak! You hear a roar!
You feel a bit more experienced. x6
You feel a bit more experienced. x12
You feel a bit more experienced. x8
You feel a bit more experienced. x5
You feel a bit more experienced. x4
You feel a bit more experienced. x3
You feel a bit more experienced.

I killed 39 monsters by a single cast of singularity and I still don't know whom I am "fighting".

While this is a perfectly valid point, I'd still prefer that it remain in the game with two changes: 1) singularity not damage monsters outside of LOS and 2) Singularity range reduced to 5 (or even 4). It's a great spell and doesn't need to be removed.

[Berder]

I wasn't a fan of the singularity spell, but its removal, still, is a nerf to casters, in line with the disturbing recent trend. I think tloc needs a level 9 spell that is not about direct damage, but about positioning, like the rest of the tloc school. Especially now that ctele is also removed, tloc needs more bling.

"Null sphere" - level 9 translocations spell. Target an empty square. Creates an impassable field that slowly expands in radius 1 square per turn, pushing back all enemies and items and yourself by 1 square, like a bulldozer. Does no damage. Increased power results in increased final radius - at 200 power it would expand to fill LOS. Non-flying monsters and items pushed into deadly lava/deep water are destroyed (this includes you). If there is a line of monsters e.g. in a corridor, it pushes back the whole line by 1 square. If there's no space to push a monster back then the field fails (spell ends).

[Zwobot]

I don't think TLoc needs a level 9 spell. But Singularity was an interesting spell. Toning down the damage - or removing out of los damage would've been enough IMO, since the pinning effect was pretty useful and the tactics it opened up with blocking alone were interesting and fun to play with.

Flat out removal seems an over-reaction.

[duvessa]

Singularity is a great demonstration of why open software projects need quality standards. Its entire design was "fire storm but in the wrong school and with extra meaningless complexity", and now it's being kept for monsters because one dev is afraid of infringing on another dev's pet vault.

edit: guys the second part is a joke, stop thinking that i was serious

[archaeo]

Flat out removal seems an over-reaction.

As usual, the ##crawl-dev logs provide some clarity. People there were quick to point out that, without damage, singularity becomes a fairly weak spell in comparison to all the other tloc spells you could be using, especially at level 9. And, if you drop the level significantly, it still doesn't compare favorably to just using the other spells anyway!

now it's being kept for monsters because one dev is afraid of infringing on another dev's pet vault.

Or you could read this another way, in which the devs are working together politely, and trying to balance changing the game without stepping on their friends' toes, all in the service of a project with no target date for shipping, or responsibility to please shareholders, or really any constraints whatsoever to be anything other than a fun game that people work on in their spare time for a modest number of enthusiasts.

But sorry, we were having an argument over whether this is a travesty because it's part of a secret cabal of devs who, in the throes of evangelism, are trying to eliminate witchcraft, or because it indicates their cowardly inability to control the quality of their free software. Please proceed.

e: oh, it was supposed to be a joke, I see, v. funny. I forgot, because in my tavern headcanon, duvessa is always 100% serious about crawl.

[Zwobot]

Flat out removal seems an over-reaction.

As usual, the ##crawl-dev logs provide some clarity. People there were quick to point out that, without damage, singularity becomes a fairly weak spell in comparison to all the other tloc spells you could be using, especially at level 9. And, if you drop the level significantly, it still doesn't compare favorably to just using the other spells anyway!

Well there's a wide range between no damage at all and kill a Hell Sentinel in one cast. So instead of tuning the spell, we get a flat removal. Seems like an over-reaction to me. Anyone thinking that Singularity is the bastard child of fire storm and whatever apparently got their thought process stuck at "smite targeted" and "area effect". Well, I suppose that's one way to approach spell design.

As for the other TLoc spells... uh, cBlink/Warp weapon are the big ones. The rest is nice - or flat out not that useful. Not that the school isn't already one of the best ones with just the spells <= level 7 anyway.

[tasonir]

e: oh, it was supposed to be a joke, I see, v. funny. I forgot, because in my tavern headcanon, duvessa is always 100% serious about crawl.

This used to be somewhat more true, but it's become quite clear that duvessa has become unhindged at some point in the last 6 months to a year. He now mostly posts about "new combat move" troll threads, things on his feet, and sexy elf dreams. Really, most of his content is only marginally related to crawl at all. This isn't meant to be a criticism of duvessa, just a suggestion that duvessa is pretty far from "100% serious about crawl".

[Sar]

new combat move threads weren't serious? wtf

[duvessa]

i havent had an elf dream in literally years

[Arrhythmia]

i havent had an elf dream in literally years

You played Settlers of Catan with Princess Zelda, noted elf.

[wheals]

edit: guys the second part is a joke, stop thinking that i was serious

nice try, gammafunk

[GrumpD]

I'm sad to see the spell go. I've only used it a little bit, but it didn't strike me as exceptionally different than firestorm in terms of kill power, but I'm also not finding the one best way to exploit LOS in zigs. I mean, it doesn't really have that much effect on the three rune game experience, right?

[archaeo]

Princess Zelda, noted elf.

Excuse me (princess), Zelda is a Hylian

[tabstorm]

Translocations is one of the ~4 schools that is good, I think it can take the hit.

[Arrhythmia]

Princess Zelda, noted elf.

Excuse me (princess), Zelda is a Hylian

Yeah, okay, the long lived, long eared race with an elegant language who are personally blessed by the Gods but face a dwindling bloodline AREN'T elves? Take a hike, troll.

[duvessa]

if i had a dream about spock would it count as an elf dream? god, you people. anyway, zelda and i were definitely just friends in the dream

I'm sad to see the spell go. I've only used it a little bit, but it didn't strike me as exceptionally different than firestorm in terms of kill power, but I'm also not finding the one best way to exploit LOS in zigs. I mean, it doesn't really have that much effect on the three rune game experience, right?

Well, if you want the singularity experience, you can pretty much just get fire storm. They don't really differ much outside of like, zigs and killing hell/pan lords.

[archaeo]

Yeah, okay, the long lived, long eared race with an elegant language who are personally blessed by the Gods but face a dwindling bloodline AREN'T elves? Take a hike, troll.

Oh, thanks Professor Tolkien.

[byrel]

Can anyone catch me up on how the devteam has been disturbingly nerfing casters? I keep seeing this stated as a truism... but the only caster nerfs I remember specifically are meph cloud not filling 3x3 (still a broken spell) and LOS requirements on summons.

[Berder]

Changes in 0.17:

• less early game MP
• undead expiration
• can't eat poison chunks
• invisibility nerf
• removal of enslave spell
• removal of flight spell
• removal of control teleport
• removal of singularity

[gammafunk]

And now there's this commit. I did it to buff casters (they can use dmsl/rmsl).

[Sprucery]

invisibility nerf

What's that?

[Berder]

invisibility nerf

What's that?

The chance of enemies waking up while you're invisible was greatly increased. With the result: you usually can't invis stab a crowd anymore without them waking up midway through.

[Zooty]

I wasn't a fan of the singularity spell, but its removal, still, is a nerf to casters, in line with the disturbing recent trend.

I feel like I need to find some other spell to nerf now just to see if it's possible for this self-parody to become any more incredible. (The true reason behind brutal caster nerfs revealed...???)

Freeze stun never forget.

[bcadren]

Hey casters got a buff too. Ignite Poison is much more powerful now.

[Berder]

Hey casters got a buff too. Ignite Poison is much more powerful now.

I would say ignite poison had more of a lateral move. The main reason for most characters to get it in the past - dealing direct damage to poisonous enemies, particularly in spider and snake - is now gone. Yes, ignite poison is more powerful now when it comes to hurting enemies that were poisoned. It's hard to say whether in the end the changes were positive.

[Kate]

I dug up some other important recent caster nerfs to fix some glaring omissions from the list.

• Don't make Dragon's Call summon dragons onto firewood (zxc232) (another level 9 spell, vital for the survival of casters everywhere, completely ruined)
• Remove feeding from Vitalisation (as with poison chunk removal, the devs are trying their best to make sure all casters (of Zin) starve)
• Remove Vampiric Draining backlash (now casters can't even detect whether an invisible adjacent monster is undead or demonic by casting Vampiric Draining at it, very useful for deciding whether to then cast Dispel Undead at it)

[Berder]

Marvin, two of the patches you mention were extremely edge case bugfixes that had little effect on anybody.

• Remove feeding from Vitalisation (as with poison chunk removal, the devs are trying their best to make sure all casters (of Zin) starve)

This, however, is actually slightly significant. I have been glad for Zin Vit giving me nutrition in the past. It may not be much, but if you add it up over all the times you use it, it comes out to a few rations. Many Zin blaster casters are indeed tightly squeezed for food due to the conduct of not eating the corpses of intelligent beings.

I speak from experience, having won both an OpWz and an OpSu of Zin (among other Zin wins), both of whom I remember as being a bit tight on food during lair branches. I've even used Vit to take me out of Starving once or twice.

[emikaela]

sad to see singularity go, it was fun to use. if it's too strong with the current damage (which i do agree with) and too weak with no damage, it definitely suggests that there is a happy medium at, say, half damage? though i suppose killing things out of los slowly can be just as problematic as doing it quickly while also being more tedious... so that part would have to go as well.

as for "just use firestorm instead", well, it felt good to have a translocations capstone to look forward to on the species that are good with that and not great at conjurations or elemental schools (ie felids, spriggans).

[Zwobot]

Changes in 0.17:

• less early game MP
• undead expiration
• can't eat poison chunks
• invisibility nerf
• removal of enslave spell
• removal of flight spell
• removal of control teleport
• removal of singularity

• MP cap got removed.
• Animate dead is still best spell.
• No ring of snacking swap anymore. Still kinda annoying.
• Few people actually knew/realized how powerful invisibility was against sleeping enemies. IIRC stealth got buffed in response?
• Tukima's makes up for it. Dazzling Spray is kinda new as well, isn't it?
• Flight spell... really? Well, I don't get the reason for removal myself. But still.
• -cTele is a nerf for everyone. (At the moment cBlink is silly though)
• Ahh, I'm still salty about Singularity, but it's a Level 9 spell. Just skill Tornado or something?

Agreed on Zin though... that change seems to be for flavor reasons with little thought behind it :p Same with the odd Ash changes. More noticable ... really?

Anyway there's no massive caster nerf. A few utterly imbalanced bits got taken out, some lateral changes. But you can still blaster caster as much as ever.

Edit: Yeah, if anything Singularity removal is a Spriggan nerf... and well...

[bel]

Biggest caster nerf: MP over 50 is not halved anymore.

[Berder]

Biggest caster nerf: MP over 50 is not halved anymore.

That came as part of the same change that reduced early game MP. Having a few points of extra MP on a character that already has tons of MP and is well established, does not make up for the far more important early game consequences of lower MP.

Tukima's makes up for it

Tukima's is good now, but Enslave was more all-around useful. That's the stated reason Enslave was removed - supposedly it was too powerful and "everybody" had to get it, so new Tukima's was supposed to be a weaker replacement.

Also, arcane marksmen got their Enslave replaced by the useless Gell's Gravitas instead of Tukima's.

[bel]

Biggest caster nerf: MP over 50 is not halved anymore.

That came as part of the same change that reduced early game MP. Having a few points of extra MP on a character that already has tons of MP and is well established, does not make up for the far more important early game consequences.

Perhaps, but if we are talking about singularity, we are talking about late game.

[archaeo]

Marvin, two of the patches you mention were extremely edge case bugfixes that had little effect on anybody.

I think part of the reason you receive pushback on the "disturbing trend" meme is because the changes you're criticizing are perceived as exactly this: edge cases that really don't affect players in the middle of the pack all that much. Sure, the animate skeleton nerf is maybe tough on the newest players, though it prevents them from learning scummy behavior. And the removal of things like cTele and enslave are bad for the high-level players who had mastered manipulating them (Yermak and Sapher, especially).

[Sar]

And the removal of things like cTele and enslave are bad for the high-level players

Are you saying Berder isn't a high-level player? Did you even see his signature? Not only is he a greateroctopode (of course), which is no small feat on its own, but he is also a renown greaterplayer and most importantly a streaker, with multiple written guides to his name! Please pay more attention and be more considerate next time.

[byrel]

At the risk of turning this into an 'educate the truant player' session... here's a couple more specific questions:

How is not being able to eat poison a specific nerf to casters? Because of the Cure Poison spell? I admit never needing enough satiation on corpse-eating characters to have thought of eating poisonous meat and the curing the poison.

I hadn't heard about the enslave+flight spells; I'd rather have Tukima's than Enslave anyhow. I'm more scared about that quick blade of distortion or antimagic GSC than by the monster itself usually. Though I guess enslavement was a tool vs spellcasting threats too.

But why flight? Do we still have access to evokable flight? This is a minor nerf to hybrids and casters. (it's low enough level, I don't really consider it a caster-only spell.)

I dug up some other important recent caster nerfs to fix some glaring omissions from the list. ...

(now casters can't even detect whether an invisible adjacent monster is undead or demonic by casting Vampiric Draining at it, very useful for deciding whether to then cast Dispel Undead at it)

lol

Oh, and PSA: I've just run 1 game on 0.16 and half of one on 0.17, both stealthy stabbers. Stealth in the second one was noticeably stronger. I didn't notice a difference to invisistabbing. (OTOH I don't really CARE that they all woke up provided I can stab them to death before the invis wears off; I might not have been paying attention.)

[mps]

I don't really give a damn about characters who cast spells instead of hitting things, but I do think there's a basic analytic error behind moves that reduce the effectiveness of such characters (even if only at certain stages of the game), namely that they're already considerably worse and wildly more annoying to play than melee-only or ranged weapons oriented characters, except for races with extreme magic aptitudes or armor restrictions.

[Zwobot]

At the risk of turning this into an 'educate the truant player' session... here's a couple more specific questions:

How is not being able to eat poison a specific nerf to casters? Because of the Cure Poison spell? I admit never needing enough satiation on corpse-eating characters to have thought of eating poisonous meat and the curing the poison.

Here'S how this one goes. With rPois you could munch on spiders/nagas/swamp dragons etc. If you happen to use level six spells with lowish spellcasting/int (quite possible, especially with Veh) - then you're going to be hungry after pretty much every fight.

This means, if you're spamming bolt of something, you'll rely on perma food. The reaction is of course to raise Spellcasting, use lower level spells or melee/evocables. It's is a bit irritating.

I hadn't heard about the enslave+flight spells; I'd rather have Tukima's than Enslave anyhow. I'm more scared about that quick blade of distortion or antimagic GSC than by the monster itself usually. Though I guess enslavement was a tool vs spellcasting threats too.

I'm with you there - but then I never really used Enslave myself. It was a "better than instakill ranged spell" though. This mostly hits AM. But AM is a badly designed background anyway that just got used to get Enslave :3

Oh, and PSA: I've just run 1 game on 0.16 and half of one on 0.17, both stealthy stabbers. Stealth in the second one was noticeably stronger. I didn't notice a difference to invisistabbing. (OTOH I don't really CARE that they all woke up provided I can stab them to death before the invis wears off; I might not have been paying attention.)

Well... IIRC invisibility worked well against sleeping enemies that HAVE SInv. That's due to a quirk in the way it changed the wake up formula ... I think, not really worth looking up now. Anyway normal stealth got buffed? Yay.

[bel]

Thread has gone far afield from singularity, so I will go more general as well.

I don't agree with "magic less powerful than melee". In fact, I think magic is more powerful than melee, it is just less "tab"-able. Most people train up melee only for convenience. It is a bit easier to screw up with magic-only characters, than melee-only characters, but that is a separate issue.

In fact, when I was new, the first few DECj I won, I did most of the game almost entirely with magic (I did train dodging and fighting for defence). I had this idea that DE was supposed to be a glass cannon, so I rushed high level powerful spells. Battlesphere lasted till I got fire storm castable. Nothing can really last against fire storm in a 3-rune game, or 15 rune game for that matter, given enough fire storms. DE has high apts, so that is a bit of an extreme case, but so is doing the game entirely with magic. Missiles are probably more powerful than magic.

[archaeo]

Are you saying Berder isn't a high-level player?

I should've been more specific, as I mostly meant playing for high scores. Removing cTele, for example, adds hundreds of turns to the 15 rune game.

I know we're kidding around, but Berder is in fact good at winning crawl.

[byrel]

At this point removing C'Tele is actually a big buff to serious casters, since they're the ones likely to be able to cast C'Blink. And C'Blink+apportation can now get you any rune in a handful of turns in exchange for glow. Take Dith, and use your shadow form as well, and... every rune level is basically free.

The orb run is harder, and speed runs are harder, but casters are easier.

[mps]

I don't agree with "magic less powerful than melee". In fact, I think magic is more powerful than melee, it is just less "tab"-able. Most people train up melee only for convenience. It is a bit easier to screw up with magic-only characters, than melee-only characters, but that is a separate issue.

In fact, when I was new, the first few DECj I won, I did most of the game almost entirely with magic (I did train dodging and fighting for defence). I had this idea that DE was supposed to be a glass cannon, so I rushed high level powerful spells. Battlesphere lasted till I got fire storm castable. Nothing can really last against fire storm in a 3-rune game, or 15 rune game for that matter, given enough fire storms. DE has high apts, so that is a bit of an extreme case, but so is doing the game entirely with magic. Missiles are probably more powerful than magic.

Yes, "magic is more powerful than melee" is a popular opinion as is the opinion that winning a game with magic = using conjurations. But conjurations are bad even as magic goes. Summoning is much stronger and the better spells are easier to cast (like, MM vs. OOD... they hardly compare). Singularity was powerful in considerable part because of its old-fashioned summoning-like aspects: It hit things out of LoS and it hindered or outright blocked things from approaching you.

Using high-level spells involves trade-offs with defense in a three rune game that melee and ranged weapons don't. Even if it's true that on DE you can reliably get firestorm castable before a 3 rune game is already over, it's less true of other species. I'll admit that on a DE you should use spells a lot (though they should be summons mostly) and similarly for octopodes and felids, where there's no armor trade-off to contend with. Extended is a somewhat different story, since the amount of xp is ridiculous and the trade-offs aren't the same. Here, a melee build with a few focused magic skills aimed at buffs totally makes sense, even with heavy armor and bad magic aptitudes.

I should elaborate re: conjurations. Many conjurations have wonky mechanics that impose minimum range/self-damage restrictions. Many of the better ones require two or more different skills (!) to use effectively. Most have pretty terrible mp/damage efficiency, with notable exceptions being the level 9 ones, which means you usually need some kind of mp recovery strategy. At best, they do nothing but damage monsters, which is a good defense until it isn't. By contrast, summons at least hinder monsters from approaching and attacking you and melee or ranged weapons don't have the defense issue.

The apparent power of conjurations comes from the infinities involved in normal crawling: No time constraints, no food constraints, etc. You can probably win normal crawling by training only throwing and attacking only with stones. If you're not interested in any concept of efficiency, anything works in a 3 rune game, but some things are worse than others and the standard magic as conjurations for primary offense is probably the worst option players routinely accept.

[Sandman25]

I think you might just write "TL/DR: Conjurations are bad for speedrunning"

[WingedEspeon]

You can probably win normal crawling by training only throwing and attacking only with stones.

I nearly did something like that once.

[MrPlanck]

Never used it, so I won't miss it.