Gozag Rework

[bcadren]

Thoughts on how the main Gozag abilities could be reworked to make the god a bit more reasonable.

• New Ability: Concierge service. ~100 gold. Instantly receive a slice of pizza (and use one turn to eat it).
• Potion Petition - (Still) 400 gold - Current version is too random to use much more than a panic button. In this case you choose a specific potion and receive that and 1-3 random additional potions (excluding bad [Poison etc.] and risky [Ambrosia, Berserk Rage] potions). [Example: Request brilliance, receive Brilliance, Magic and Curing.]
• Call Merchant - (800-2000) gold - Calls a Merchant to an unexplored floor. Changes:
  • If possible the merchant is called to the next floor.
    • If in any branch floor other than $ it's summoned to the next floor. (Cocytus: 4 will summon a store to Cocytus: 5), etc.
    • If on a $ it will send to a random unexplored floor; defaulting to a depth one deeper than you've gone. (Summoning a store on Snake:4 when you haven't done Elf or other lair branches could summon to Elf:1, Swamp:1 or Slime:1).
    • If in the main dungeon and all of the floors in the dungeon are explored; the store will be on the first floor of pandemonium you visit.
    • If used in Pandemonium, it'll be sent to the next region of pandemonium you visit.
  • Store has guaranteed acquirement level items. Floor(cost/1000) + d(cost/400). [2+d5 for cost 2000 stores].
    • These acquirements are, similar to Okawaru acquirements, not as good as Acquirement scroll acquirements but much more numerous.
  • Food stores are always offered and cost less than their item value. (generally 300-500 gold).
• Bribe Branch (3000 gold) - Power boost compared to current. Remove the neutral portion of the effect, always enslave if it acts; act slightly more commonly.
• Hire Mercenary - (1000-5000) gold - hires a Mercenary to help you in battle. Max power is higher than the card; being able to hire Iron Trolls, classed Draconians and classed Demonspawn at highest gold amount.

[duvessa]

Even bcadren can't make gozag's design any worse lol

[bcadren]

Even bcadren can't make gozag's design any worse lol

I was trying to fix it with minimal actual change. *shrug* It's pretty bad.

[KittenInMyCerealz]

So...
Unlimited risk free potions
Unlimited food
Better items than okawaru gives
op summons


So basically you want a more versatile okawaru with unlimited food and 2 additional abilities. (no skill boost but you have all potions you want available with no real cost)

Petition: Remove gozag

[mps]

Yes, if god abilities aren't risky and dangerous, that's bad. If you mention Okawaru in your post, you're proposing something that's the same as Okawaru. Buying an iron troll summon for 5000 gold is overpowered. Unlimited food would be a new thing in crawl. Current Gozag is so good that if you added two extra abilities, it would be nuts.

Do we have any opinions from people who've played crawl before?

[dynast]

I thought food was already unlimited in this game...

[byrel]

Gozag is a fun god currently, but distinctly UP. Ru, Chei, and Qaz are all much stronger, even with their downsides included IMO.

I'm not SURE how much more potent this rework would be. The Concierge service would be a good buff at the time Gozag is pathetic; early-mid game. I'm not sure that the customizable potion petition is really worth it; I never felt like Potion petition was too weak as it is.

I love the idea of a weak acquirement in a store, and food stores being cheaper. I think those are both quite reasonable. Note that a Gozag worshipper might summon 12ish stores in a 3-rune game; that's WAY less than Okawaru or Trog gives. It's only slightly improves the loot you'll use at the end of the game, but significantly increases the satisfaction of store granting.

I'm OK with the current randomness of store placement, but because it can't place stores in lair, orc and lair branches... you end up with a huge dead period. I think that's the core problem, and could be fixed by allowing stores to be spawned in those branches. (There might be pathing issues, but needing a wand of digging isn't too high a price occasionally.)

Hire Mercenary sounds a bit weak. I have trouble seeing when I'd use it. Spider:5 maybe?

[daggaz]

One thing that could be improved is to have him drop shops at your feet instead of some random fucking place further on in in the dungeon. You have the money, you call on your god, you want to use the power then and there, not possibly twenty minutes later if you are still alive.

[byrel]

One thing that could be improved is to have him drop shops at your feet instead of some random fucking place further on in in the dungeon. You have the money, you call on your god, you want to use the power then and there, not possibly twenty minutes later if you are still alive.

By the same token, I'd love to have an executioner's axe drop from the sky when I get axes trained to 26. Crawl doesn't make a habit of handing us stuff as soon as we are ready to use it. Instead it's a grabbag of stuff we aren't ready for yet, and stuff that isn't useful to us. And we have to adapt to that unreliability.

This is really parallel to Veh and Kiku not guaranteeing spells anymore. While you can certainly have the game too unreliable and make it a luck-fest, it's a lot more tempting generally to make it too reliable and remove the need for adaptation.

There is a timing problem with the shops during Lair and orc, and the issue that V shops are inaccessible till post rune. But the option of diving a floor or three for the shop is quite reasonable for me; if you're desperate for a power boost, but have some consumables left to get you out of bad situations, it can be worth it. Especially if the expected value of a shop was increased a bit with an acquirement.

Though it did just occur to me... what if a felid calls a weapon shop? Sometimes that could be optimal, as you don't want any of the others and it might be cheaper (by a factor of 2) than any of the rest. What acquirement does it give? Or should weapons shops just not be offered to Fe?