Refused and Rejected Concepts which should be implemented

[Rast]

From https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php? ... ng:wont_do
This is a list of often-suggested concepts that will deliberately never be designed for various reasons.

This list is incomplete.

Weapons of venom should poison chunks when butchering
Only adds tedium.
Choosing your colour as a Draconian
Dr isn't meant to be nine subspecies, but to introduce a challenge where the player must adapt to the colour.
Cooking skill
Would probably just complicate things. Would really only be worth considering for whimsy, not as an actually useful skill.
Ice bridges
Throwing potions, or dipping weapons into them
Actually, you can throw potions all you want; there just isn't much point.
Dual wielding
Likely way too tricky to balance
Would lead to annoying dilemmas
Make Regeneration non-Necromancy
You'll need a god or invest in Necromancy to get renewable healing in the game. Not that a L3 spell is a huge investment, but hey, it's Cool that it's Evil.
Give full xp for summons/ally kills.
It's a necessary balance tool, and will probably stay that way with any nerfing to summons.
Commands for individual monsters. (“give”, “take”, or assigning tasks like “follow me”, “attack” to single allies). This is only relevant for permanent (or very longterm) allies, and if needed, we will rather get rid of those than implementing this kind of micromanagement.
Restoring saves after death. There's Felids since version 0.8, though.
Two-headed player species. In particular, no to two-headed playable ogres, double no to wearing two amulets at once and double double no to simultaneous religions.
Selling items in shops
This just leads to scumming (drudgery) anyway.
Containers (like sacks or bags): 52 item slots, that's it.
For everything else, there's the stash tracker.
Getting loot from player ghosts (like bones in Nethack)
Again, scumming. Not much fun.
Beneficial effects from chunks.
Would encourage tedious behaviour like stashing monsters.
Removing the Ecumenical Temple.
It serves as an important milestone for almost all new and some veteran players, and creates flavour (there are animosities among the gods, but they are of the Greek or Norse type, not of the monotheistic variant).
More numerical feedback, for stealth or MR or piety or damage dealt to monsters.
More numbers displayed lead to more cognitive load for all (but especially new or casual) players. We attempt to display numbers only where it is crucial (such as HP, MP, AC, EV).
Moreover, showing plain numbers needs a lot of context (e.g. for monster AC or damage done to monsters, we'd need to announce monster HP etc.)
Displaying information graphically (such as for spell power, piety, MR, stealth) has its own issues (is the scale linear or logarithmic etc.) but we reckon that it strikes sufficient balance between needs of new and seasoned players.
Adding acid spells to the Poison Magic school.
Poison is already well-defined, adding spells that bypass all of its drawbacks/advantages does not improve it.
Acid damage is not very different from plain nonelemental damage for players, since acid resistance is so rare and the monster corrosion effect is mostly insignificant.
Crafting.

[Sandman25]

Give full xp for summons/ally kills.
It's a necessary balance tool, and will probably stay that way with any nerfing to summons.

I have a problem understanding this. So summons are still the most OP thing in the game and the only "nerf" is just "less XP"?
It's like making Death's Door level 5 spell without reducing HP but giving less XP for kills while active.
Nerf summoning spells, temporarily lose max HP% for every active summon cast. Have 3 Ice Beasts active? Get -12% (3*4) to max HP. Casted Monster Menagerie thrice? Get -18% max HP. Dragon Call should be changed back to Summon Dragons (got 5 dragons - get -45% max HP).

[Rast]

Ice bridges

I don't see why not.

Dual wielding
Likely way too tricky to balance
Would lead to annoying dilemmas

Has already been (kinda) implemented in the form of Gyre&Gimble. Could be extended to normal use, with the traditional restriction that the offhand weapon must be a dagger, or at least a shortblade. There are a variety of ways it could be implemented, but as long as we kept the damage below that of the top two-handers, and required a bunch of skill investment, it wouldn't be imbalanced.

Give full xp for summons/ally kills.
It's a necessary balance tool, and will probably stay that way with any nerfing to summons.

Not really. *shrug*

Commands for individual monsters. (“give”, “take”, or assigning tasks like “follow me”, “attack” to single allies). This is only relevant for permanent (or very longterm) allies, and if needed, we will rather get rid of those than implementing this kind of micromanagement.

The few players who actually enjoy playing Beogh seem to desire more control of their allies. Everyone else just goes HO^notBeogh.

Two-headed player species. In particular, no to two-headed playable ogres, double no to wearing two amulets at once and double double no to simultaneous religions.

Because wearing two amulets is so much worse than wearing eight rings.

Containers (like sacks or bags): 52 item slots, that's it.
For everything else, there's the stash tracker.

I think we can see the end of the road on this one. It might not be containers, but it will be some kind of expanded inventory.

Removing the Ecumenical Temple.
It serves as an important milestone for almost all new and some veteran players, and creates flavour (there are animosities among the gods, but they are of the Greek or Norse type, not of the monotheistic variant).

This is also on the way out. There are so many small temple minivaults these days that the actual Temple often contains only half the gods or less. Which is good.

FR: Remove Temple, turn the good Temple maps into in-level vaults, then guarantee all normal gods by D:8 (current is D:9)

More numerical feedback, for stealth or MR or piety or damage dealt to monsters.
More numbers displayed lead to more cognitive load for all (but especially new or casual) players. We attempt to display numbers only where it is crucial (such as HP, MP, AC, EV).
Moreover, showing plain numbers needs a lot of context (e.g. for monster AC or damage done to monsters, we'd need to announce monster HP etc.)
Displaying information graphically (such as for spell power, piety, MR, stealth) has its own issues (is the scale linear or logarithmic etc.) but we reckon that it strikes sufficient balance between needs of new and seasoned players.

Crafting.

Isn't there a crafting god in an experimental branch?

[byrel]

Are you suggesting that all of those are good ideas to implement? I mean, I find a few arguable (like displaying monster HP and damage; that's the sort of cognitive load gamers are used to at this point anyhow) but I can see no benefit to crafting, venom weapons poisoning chunks, Dr color choosing, cooking, saves, etc.

One thing that did stand out to me is that the two-headed player species denouncement seems remarkably strong; it's not like it would be undoable if someone managed to invent and implement an adequately unique and interesting race concept that happened to involve two amulet slots. It's not like amulets are that OP. (Oh noes! a player has regen AND mutation resistance?)

But half of this stuff seems irredeemably bad design.

[Rast]

Are you suggesting that all of those are good ideas to implement?

But half of this stuff seems irredeemably bad design.

My first post has the full list, for convenience. I agree with you that many of those things are terrible.

My second post has just the ideas which I think could be added to the game, or at least removed from the wont_do list.

[byrel]

Ahh, well. Here's my thoughts mostly on the things I disagree with. Some of them are contentious enough we have multiple threads on them (like numbers) so I won't go into them here.

Ice bridges

Because it sets up all sorts of spoilery interactions with fire melting ice bridges, which will open the possibility for deep water instadeaths and scummy freeze-melt-drowning scenarios.

Dual wielding

Has already been (kinda) implemented in the form of Gyre&Gimble. Could be extended to normal use, with the traditional restriction that the offhand weapon must be a dagger, or at least a shortblade. There are a variety of ways it could be implemented, but as long as we kept the damage below that of the top two-handers, and required a bunch of skill investment, it wouldn't be imbalanced.

Not imbalanced, but dull. I don't think it would add much interesting to the game. As a fixedart, I keep hoping to find it on a shortblades user though for fun. Just like every other fixedart.

Give full xp for summons/ally kills.
It's a necessary balance tool, and will probably stay that way with any nerfing to summons.

Not really. *shrug*

Actually, summons are extremely potent. I really don't mind the diminished XP. It doesn't change my behavior at all, but does somewhat reduce the power level of a primary summoner.

Two-headed player species. In particular, no to two-headed playable ogres, double no to wearing two amulets at once and double double no to simultaneous religions.

Because wearing two amulets is so much worse than wearing eight rings.

I'll give you that. Who cares about double amulet?

Containers (like sacks or bags): 52 item slots, that's it.
For everything else, there's the stash tracker.

I think we can see the end of the road on this one. It might not be containers, but it will be some kind of expanded inventory.

I'm not sure you're right. With the stash tracker, I don't think this is necessary at all. The inv limit reduces scumming a bit, and gives little minmaxy decisions which don't feel bad to me. It also makes people actually stop and ask themselves 'under what circumstances would I quaff a !ofAgi?' Thinking ahead is good.

Removing the Ecumenical Temple.
It serves as an important milestone for almost all new and some veteran players, and creates flavour (there are animosities among the gods, but they are of the Greek or Norse type, not of the monotheistic variant).

This is also on the way out. There are so many small temple minivaults these days that the actual Temple often contains only half the gods or less. Which is good.

FR: Remove Temple, turn the good Temple maps into in-level vaults, then guarantee all normal gods by D:8 (current is D:9)

I don't see anything wrong with the Temple. You could make it into a in-level vault instead of separate level if you wanted, but it's important to most newbies, and is good flavor.

[Rast]

Dual wielding

Not imbalanced, but dull. I don't think it would add much interesting to the game. As a fixedart, I keep hoping to find it on a shortblades user though for fun. Just like every other fixedart.

It gives you a tradeoff between a little extra damage or some SH.

Can we agree that it isn't a completely awful idea that belongs on the same page as cooking skill and selling items back to shops?

Two-headed player species. In particular, no to two-headed playable ogres, double no to wearing two amulets at once and double double no to simultaneous religions.

Because wearing two amulets is so much worse than wearing eight rings.

I'll give you that. Who cares about double amulet?

We both missed that it gives an extra helmet slot too. Which would be Just Fine.

Removing the Ecumenical Temple.
It serves as an important milestone for almost all new and some veteran players, and creates flavour (there are animosities among the gods, but they are of the Greek or Norse type, not of the monotheistic variant).

This is also on the way out. There are so many small temple minivaults these days that the actual Temple often contains only half the gods or less. Which is good.

FR: Remove Temple, turn the good Temple maps into in-level vaults, then guarantee all normal gods by D:8 (current is D:9)

I don't see anything wrong with the Temple. You could make it into a in-level vault instead of separate level if you wanted, but it's important to most newbies, and is good flavor.

Temple is such good flavor that people have made tons of in-level temple vaults already, which range from 1 to about 7 altars each. Temple as an actual separate branch is what is obsolete.

[tasonir]

Two amulets wouldn't be that hard to do, and might be nice for people who really want mutation resistance without worrying about blocking LOS all the time (I'm lazy too), but it isn't really going to be that incredible. So it's pretty plausible, but I definitely agree that you do not want to do double religion.

I'm not sure why dual wielding is such a popular feature request, I don't really see it having much benefit unless you're dual wielding randarts with useful egos. Two 1H weapons aren't going to do that much more damage than a 2h, and assuming that dual wielding is subject to balance they'd probably get some sort of damage penalty if it turned out that two 1H really were stronger than 2h weapons. There's a ton of tricky issues with the weapons being of different speeds, although you could require that the two weapons have to have the same delay, but then you'll have people annoyed that they can't dual wield their scimitar of flaming with their scimitar of speed, or that they can't dual wield an eveningstar and a double sword*.

*Did you think the eveningstar and double sword have the same delay? What if I have 16 maces skill and only 12 long blades? Now I can't dual wield them. But then I get 16 long blades, how does the game inform me that now I could dual wield them? It's just messy. Embrace the shield.

[Sandman25]

Dual wielding could be fun, just imagine using antimagic and holy weapon in extended, or using UC with confusing touch and a dagger, fighters might use weapons of pain/draining and electro (or flaming and freezing) tabbing everything without weapon switching etc.

[rockygargoyle]

You can see how powerful antimagic/holy wrath at the same time is by playing VS!

[duvessa]

Dual wielding and commands for individual monsters were added to the game, yes. This doesn't mean more items on the won't do list should be added to the game. It just means that two egregiously stupid things were added to the game and should be removed as soon as possible.

[byrel]

Dual wielding and commands for individual monsters were added to the game, yes. ... It just means that two egregiously stupid things were added to the game and should be removed as soon as possible.

I really don't think having a dual-wield fixedart is bad for the game in any way. I'm not familiar with the ally controls; is that in trunk currently?

[tabstorm]

Dual wielding weapons of the same category wouldn't be that tricky, I think. Given the base delay of both, you have some function that determines a total delay, and treat your dual-wielded weapons as something similar to Gyre and Gimble, with some damage penalty. For instance, two broad axes might hit swing at speed 1.0 at 26 skill, aiming for similar damage output to an executioner's axe. It's not obvious to me how to do two different-category weapons, though.

This is the sort of thing that makes Crawl's weapon skill/attack delay system seem dumb. To me the fine-graining of speed is just pointless complexity and more stuff to remember (what outspeeds me, what about when swifted, what about when swift hasted, what about when slowed, now what about if I have a shield on with a nonzero penalty, what if I'm a fast race, don't forget that energy randomization could kill you for no reason, etc.). I think you only really need 4 speeds:

Slow
Normal
Fast
Really Fast (this is arguable)

[Sphara]

Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
(seriously)

Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

[tasonir]

While Sphara's response is absolutely correct and this is a terrible idea, another system which would be slightly better than requiring them to be exactly the same speed would be to just always swing at the speed of the slower weapon, and the faster weapon hits with it, and any extra time is wasted. So a 7 aut weapon with a 5 aut weapon swings at 7 auts, and there's no 2 aut carryover. Debateable if you offhand a quick blade if that quick blade should be allowed to hit twice; there would be time for it.

Reminder: I'm not actually suggesting dual wielding

[Zooty]

Dual wielding and commands for individual monsters were added to the game, yes. This doesn't mean more items on the won't do list should be added to the game. It just means that two egregiously stupid things were added to the game and should be removed as soon as possible.

Gyre&Gimble should more accurately be called Binds Tab to TabTab.

[ontoclasm]

Gyre&Gimble

Can we please stop making the joke that G&G count as dual wielding in any way ever
I guess it was maybe funny the first time but this is like four different threads now

[duvessa]

I was under the impression that being dual wielding was the entire point of G&G.

[Arrhythmia]

It's pretty clearly one two-handed weapon with goofy flavour, not two weapons being wielded separately.

[bel]

The only thing I do different when playing HO^Beogh is to pause sometimes to allow my allies to catch up with me. Oh and giving them some polearms. More micromanagement doesn't seem necessary.

[Siegurt]

The only thing I do different when playing HO^Beogh is to pause sometimes to allow my allies to catch up with me. More micromanagement doesn't seem necessary.

Try control-E, you might like it...

[bel]

I do use ctrl-E, they still fall behind. I don't know how.

[Siegurt]

I do use ctrl-E, they still fall behind. I don't know how.

Weird. Sounds like a bug.

[bcadren]

I'll pick this apart; if you don't mind. First off, remember this list is -old- and most the active dev team wasn't even around when it was written.

Weapons of venom should poison chunks when butchering: Only adds tedium.
Cooking skill: Would probably just complicate things. Would really only be worth considering for whimsy, not as an actually useful skill.

Agreed. "Remove Chunks" seems to be the more popular suggestion these days anyways.

Choosing your colour as a Draconian: Dr isn't meant to be nine subspecies, but to introduce a challenge where the player must adapt to the colour.

Although this is probably annoys players seeking Tiamat (having won one of all Dr colors); there's no reason to change it for everyone. Changing what the colors are (so there aren't 3 Fire affine ones, for example) might be a reasonable suggestion.

Ice bridges

This would...probably be more interesting than flight. Spell that makes temporary path across water/lava is actually a more unique effect than 'quaff flight'. It would have to completely -replace flight- for it to be worth it though. Need to be available in a wand too, so Troglodytes could cross water. Might actually be worth testing, but you'd need an experimental branch with no flight (except Te, of course).

Throwing potions, or dipping weapons into them: Actually, you can throw potions all you want; there just isn't much point.

IDK how I feel about this. Throwing potions is going back into Stalker territory and that was removed for a reason. As a god ability that uses potions (like Fedhas uses fruit); maybe, but as a general ability I can see why not. (Not enough ammo normally and Fulsome Distillation was just so annoying/scummy.)

Make Regeneration non-Necromancy: You'll need a god or invest in Necromancy to get renewable healing in the game. Not that a L3 spell is a huge investment, but hey, it's Cool that it's Evil.

Actually, despite it seeming arbitrary; this being an evil spell is for balance reasons (preventing stacking Regen with the Support good gods give you in extended). Same thing with DDoor; Elyvilon being OK with DDoor would be brokenly powerful.

Give full xp for summons/ally kills:It's a necessary balance tool, and will probably stay that way with any nerfing to summons.

I think now that Summons can't kill anything outside of LoS and there are enough enemies with bolt spells, smiting and Portal Projectile that can kill you while you're waiting on your summons to act, it may be worth reconsidering this. It does make a 'pure summoner' really frail and underleveled compared to other characters.

Commands for individual monsters. (“give”, “take”, or assigning tasks like “follow me”, “attack” to single allies): This is only relevant for permanent (or very longterm) allies, and if needed, we will rather get rid of those than implementing this kind of micromanagement.

I think this was done? I dislike Beogh/Yred anyways, myself. Too annoying to try to keep permanent allies alive, prefer summons. Heh. I agree micromanagement is really tedious gameplay and I wouldn't use it myself, but if people that love playing Beogh/Yred want it, why not?

Restoring saves after death: There's Felids since version 0.8, though.

Actually if you really want this. Feel free to play offline and savescum, or play in Wizard Mode. But, for mainline, of course not. A god giving any race Fe-level lifesaving? I proposed it once and still think that could be cool (if it's only one extra life and not dozens; it's not that far above Ely's life saving power-wise anyways). But actually allowing savescumming in online play, nah.

Two-headed player species: In particular, no to two-headed playable ogres, double no to wearing two amulets at once and double double no to simultaneous religions.

• Two amulets? Why not. Sacrifice some other slot to allow the race to use it. (If they are Ogre-sized they already have no Boots, Helmets or Gloves.
• Simultaneous religions? This actually; from a player perspective might be cool; but would be a pain in the ass to implement and worse to balance. I'd like to see it; but I doubt it -could- be done.

Selling items in shops: This just leads to scumming (drudgery) anyway.

Yea, dragging trash around to sell is annoying. Selling it as an (a)bility immediately? That might actually work as a god power. Gozag, everyone! But, it could still end up being tedious like corpse prayer, so...

Containers (like sacks or bags): 52 item slots, that's it. For everything else, there's the stash tracker.

There's a reason for inventory limitations on tactical items (?Torment, /HW, Phial of Floods, etc.) So that needs to be preserved; stashing as it currently exists (I don't need Amnesia or spellbooks with me right now). Is exceedingly tedious though. This is actually a problem that should be addressed; but 'bag of holding' is not the way to fix it.

Getting loot from player ghosts (like bones in Nethack): Again, scumming. Not much fun.

How is this scumming? Dying on purpose to give your next character an item? ...yea that sounds like really stupid logic. I see no issue with this.

Beneficial effects from chunks: Would encourage tedious behaviour like stashing monsters.

Stashing monsters? Isn't that DD with a Vampiric weapon encourages? Heheh. I don't see why or why not in this case. It's not really worth trying though, doesn't sound fun.

Removing the Ecumenical Temple. It serves as an important milestone for almost all new and some veteran players, and creates flavour (there are animosities among the gods, but they are of the Greek or Norse type, not of the monotheistic variant).

I can see this happening; but I don't think it needs to. Having a safe place in the world to pick a god is great for rally weak character starts.

More numerical feedback, for stealth or MR or piety or damage dealt to monsters:

• More numbers displayed lead to more cognitive load for all (but especially new or casual) players.
• We attempt to display numbers only where it is crucial (such as HP, MP, AC, EV).
• Moreover, showing plain numbers needs a lot of context (e.g. for monster AC or damage done to monsters, we'd need to announce monster HP etc.)
• Displaying information graphically (such as for spell power, piety, MR, stealth) has its own issues (is the scale linear or logarithmic etc.) but we reckon that it strikes sufficient balance between needs of new and seasoned players.

I couldn't disagree more. In fact the logic seems really bad. More information is always better for any player. It's a lot; sure, but so is showing it graphically and a number has no chance of being horribly misunderstood.

Adding acid spells to the Poison Magic school:

• Poison is already well-defined, adding spells that bypass all of its drawbacks/advantages does not improve it.
• Acid damage is not very different from plain nonelemental damage for players, since acid resistance is so rare and the monster corrosion effect is mostly insignificant.

You know. I think this rule is why Irradiate is Transmutations-school. The effect is very similar to corroding all the monsters around you on top of the damage; but is flavoured as 'malmutating' them instead because 'acid magic' is banned. Heh. Anyways, the part about monster corrosion being irrelevant is very untrue; it significantly lowers the AC of monsters. (This is part of why Fedhas Oklobs, Jiyva Acid Bite and Acid Clouds from the Rod of Clouds are so powerful). I -really do- think the player should have access to a corrosive spell; I don't particularly care what spell school it goes in, but it would be a reasonably interesting thing to give the player access to. However, even with the current acid effects; I also think monster rAcid needs to be a bit more widespread. (Yellow Draconians have rAcid+; All Jellies, except Slime Creature and Ooze have rAcid+++); nothing else has it. A Conjurations/{Foo} spell that uses acid damage would be an interesting choice for a reaver-type as the AC-lowering effect would boost killing the thing with melee after; but I don't think a corrosive spell needs to be as powerful as other high level conjurations.

Crafting.

Crafting has always been in the game. Lugging around a Demon Trident you aren't allowed to use because you are with a good god in order to get TSO to 'bless it' into something you can use is CRAFTING. Picking up a useless dragon hide and using a scroll of enchant armour to make a usable armour is CRAFTING. But, a really complicated crafting system where you need to find a lot of items from a lot of different creatures and use them to make something; would be far more tedious than fun.

Dual wielding: Likely way too tricky to balance, Would lead to annoying dilemmas

I don't see why not. There are two ways this could be done.

• A Weapon type that is made specifically to be worn in the Shield slot. IE: "Offhand Knife" "Kama" or "Sai" makes offhand punch use shortblades skill and significantly boosts it. May provide minimal SH too.
• Wield two of the same weapon (probably must be the same type for making the mindelay balance well). At 1.5x normal skill for mindelay you hit with mindelay on both. (Say mindelay is 0.7; first hits at 0.3/0.4 (coinflip) second hits at 0.7). More -total- damage than a similarly skilled 2H, but have to check AC on each hit (probably less effective damage on high-AC creatures); but get resistances and brands on both slots. Potentially too powerful. Not unworthy of testing.
  • Addendum: It may be only reasonable to do this with -just- short blades as well. Two Rapiers (even of Electrocution) would have a hard time being as powerful as Triple Sword/Exec Axe.
  • Alternatively; having it only available for 1H 'flails' could work out interestingly (Whip/Flail/Demon Whip/Sacred Scourge) as only available weapons to dual-wield. [I say this because M&F has no gimmicks, (unlike Short's Stabbing, Polearm's Reaching and Axe's Cleaving). [/list]
  
  Formatting tags on this post broke in so many amusing ways. at one point it incorporated the phpBB logo at the bottom of the page in the middle of the post. Heh. Lots of bugs! Every time I preview it; it adds an extra unnecessary

at the end of the post, so if it shows up; I didn't do it and I probably can't get rid of it.

[Lasty]

There's no design space for dual-wielding. We already have a tradeoff between damage and defense in the form of shields versus two-handed weapons, so dual-wielding doesn't open anything there. On the face of it, hitting twice per swing is just worse than the present system: it adds message spam and multiplies the effects of monster AC, which are both bad things (one for the game, the other for the player).

It also adds a host of logistical complications (how does delay work? how does the interface work?) and power creep (are they just better than a two-handed weapon? Are they the same but take more ?EW? Are they worse than a 2h weapon, in which case why bother? Do they let you stack tons of artefact properties?).

This is something that feels cool without being a good feature or introducing interesting decisions.

[Sandman25]

I know a game where there are 2h weapon, weapon for right hand, shield (left hand only) and weapon for left hand. The latter increases both offense and defense, so it is effectively weaker than 2h weapon but stronger than no shield.

[mps]

Not to say I care if there's ever a dual wield option, but there's a lot you can do with dual wielding weapons. For one thing, yes, stacking artifact properties is a reasonable tradeoff between damage and... artifact properties and valuable, limited consumables (e.g. ?EW and maybe ?brand weapon). It would absolutely add decisions that do not currently exist: Namely, if you have two good 1-handed weapons, it might be better to dual wield than use a single 2-handed weapon. This means the best play for a given dungeon depends more heavily on what generates. As it stands, I don't even think about 1-handed weapons after about mid-Lair.

I would also dispute whether the "design space" supposedly occupied by shields offers an "interesting decision." Shields are generally suboptimal except in cases where special mechanics, like Fo or Tr, make them better than on other races. A decision where one way is good and one way is bad almost every time is a lot less interesting than some seem to think.

[Lasty]

Shields are generally suboptimal except in cases where special mechanics, like Fo or Tr, make them better than on other races. A decision where one way is good and one way is bad almost every time is a lot less interesting than some seem to think.

Shields are often a good choice; I feel that the balance between 1h+shield and 2h is in a pretty good place. I know players that feel that 2h is generally better as you do, and I know several very good players who feel that 1h+shield is generally superior to two-handed weapons. No one is asserting that a choice between a good option and a bad option is great design, but people do disagree with a premise of your argument.

[bcadren]

Shields are great in optimal play (IE versus one enemy at a time); because unlike AC/EV your SH goes down after blocking a hit. The people who love shields are the same people that hate axes. Assume all (or most fights) will be one enemy at a time, optimally. As much as that is optimal; in more realistic play; axes and 2H weapons are quite good as they'll clear groups of enemies faster; which helps in situations, like Vaults:5 and other places where realistically you couldn't expect 1 on 1 to be the real way you'll fight.

[Sandman25]

The people who love shields are the same people that hate axes.

I love both shields and axes.

[The Ferret]

I do use ctrl-E, they still fall behind. I don't know how.

Weird. Sounds like a bug.

If you have a lot of orcs and move through a choke-point, they will tend to lag behind as there's not enough room for all of them to stay with you through the choke, even if you move at the speed of the slowest one. You eventually end up with a line of orcs following you, not a group around you.

[WingedEspeon]

Solving dual wielding two weapons with different current delays is easy, just use higher delay.


Once you get to holy pan, Dual wielding two +9 Eudimon Blades/Sacred Scourges would be silly OP if they worked like gyre and gimble. A Eudimon blade is already pretty similar in damage to a great mace of HW. Also, Using a Sacred Scourge as an off hand weapon with 27 UC as your main hand weapon would be illy and overpowered. Not o mention the ridiculus power you could get by "Dual Wielding" UC, even as a Human without transmutations, much less a troll. Part of what keeps 1h+shield from being OP is the increased exp investment of getting the shield online, the other part being getting a good 1h weapon. You will freguently be flooded with good 1h weapons once demon weapons start showing up in large numbers, which is often when you get your fist good 1h. Also, Fo dual wielding two 2h weapons. OP.

Maybe you could implement dual wielding by adding the enchantment, base damage, and current delay of your two weapons together and treating them as one weapon with players choice of brand between the two weapons. If you dual wield two different weapon types, just use the average weapon skill of the two.

[onget]

Restore all of stupid remove.

[duvessa]

every time a new post shows up in this thread i throw up in my mouth a little bit

[Sar]

what about smart remove

[Sprucery]

every time a new post shows up in this thread i throw up in my mouth a little bit

The next one's on me!

[Rast]

Bump. Here's what devs have added to the list in the last two years:



Removing Paralysis
Paralysis is interesting because it is impossible to respond to after being paralyzed. A more elaborate defense of paralysis. viewtopic.php?p=150027#p150027

Scroll of brand armour
Among other problems, boots of running far outstrip any other armour brand, and having this scroll would just mean that you dump it into every pair of boots you find, and usually don't get running anyway (because it's rare). We might as well just increase frequency of boots of running, rather than adding this new item.

[Shard1697]

I don't honestly agree about boots of running past fairly early on.

[stoneychips]

Personally, assuming said scroll of Brand Armor included the usual range of armor Resistances, I'd be more gaga about rolling for one or two of those that I was missing by later in the game.

[Hellmonk]

I'd probably brand armor for guardian spirit ego more than I would do it for runboots. I don't think it's a good idea to add it though.

E: from the original list, more numerical feedback for stealth/MR/piety/damage etc is good and I'm glad that DCSS seems to be headed in this direction.

[prozacelf]

I once suggested that a brand armor scroll that only applied to body armor and could only give the "standard" egos (rF, rC, rP, rN, MR, mayyyybe rElec). I was told that would be more palatable than including all the weird egos on all the aux armors, but wouldn't be likely to happen unless I was willing to put in the work to do it, and maybe not then. =p

[VeryAngryFelid]

Boots of running should be changed to behave like scarf except for legs: 0 base AC and no enchantment, call it snickers
or something. Or just make it unrandart already as it's supposed to be very rare and very powerful item.

[4Hooves2Appendages]

Call it Mars instead!

[VeryAngryFelid]

I took the word from online dictionary, it's easily possible I am wrong, the meaning should be "special shoes for running"

Edit. It should be "sneakers" I guess but I swear it shows "snickers" when translating from Russian.
You can see it here: https://translate.google.com/#ru/en/%D0 ... 0%BA%D0%B8
It shows sneakers in main window and snickers at the bottom

[pedritolo]

*snicker*

[duvessa]

Boots of running aren't THAT godlike unless you're a Ba. -0.1 move delay is only significant against monsters that are speed 10 or slightly over 10 (11, 12), and by the time you have any significant chance of having boots of running, speed 10 monsters are already easy to get out of LOS. There are not exactly tons of speed 11 and 12 monsters (how many can you think of offhand aside from ugly things and spiny frogs?).
Archmagi and spirit shield are both more powerful egos than running IMO. But if you do want to turn it into a "scarf-like item", why not just make it a scarf? Call it a scarf of fleetness or whatever. We don't need scarves for every slot.

[VeryAngryFelid]

I agree that boots of running are not that powerful but every time I said that I got lots of objections so I just gave up, treating it as forum meme or something. Running ego is good for every character unlike archmagi and spirit shield though

[ThreeInvisibleDucks]

We don't need scarves for every slot.

Especially when two of my preferred species, cats and octopuses don't get to wear those.

[Shtopit]

I took the word from online dictionary, it's easily possible I am wrong, the meaning should be "special shoes for running"

Edit. It should be "sneakers" I guess but I swear it shows "snickers" when translating from Russian.
You can see it here: https://translate.google.com/#ru/en/%D0 ... 0%BA%D0%B8
It shows sneakers in main window and snickers at the bottom

Going for a walk? Grab a sniker!

[Siegurt]

I took the word from online dictionary, it's easily possible I am wrong, the meaning should be "special shoes for running"

Edit. It should be "sneakers" I guess but I swear it shows "snickers" when translating from Russian.
You can see it here: https://translate.google.com/#ru/en/%D0 ... 0%BA%D0%B8
It shows sneakers in main window and snickers at the bottom

Going for a walk? Grab a sniker!

Actually I'd probably make "sandals" the 0 ac base type for footwear, "winged sandals" being an unrand that has both flying and running ego would be... Well, it wouldn't be that great honestly, flying sucks, but it'd *sound* cool.