Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9


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Post Saturday, 21st November 2015, 07:05

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

In regards to worries about expanding one's LoS getting the PC killed - you don't have to cast the spell in every situation, right? Firestorm is exceptionally loud but still certainly usable (but yes, it does kill enemies for you). Anyway, at a minimum, Hyperphase would be very useful for, say, a fight against a Hell lord when you've already taken out the rest of the surrounding area (there's nothing left to alert, after all).

Littering the area with copies of yourself could quite interesting if you were able to attack from any of them on any given turn - I feel like this is the original intent. To that end give "unlimited" instant controlled blinks to the locations of your copies (I'm calling this ability Hyperstep from here on), but possibly prevent movement by walking. Then, you can "Hyperstep" (via Abilities menus) to get to whichever copy you want and, should you need to flee, you simply end the spell. Until then it gives you new vectors for attack while potentially giving amazing defense if used properly.

Opening up so much map that it won't fit the console is a major problem. The simplest solution I see (which might actually be somewhat overpowered) is for the copies not to grant LoS at all until you "occupy" one with the Hyperstep. Presumably, you would know where the copies were even if they are out of your LoS, but until you step into one, you don't see what it sees. Performing the instant action of stepping in should check stealth against any monsters that are in LoS (not sure if instant actions normally result in a stealth/monster awareness check), thus it's a bit risky to scout with because, well, you might wake up the dungeon. If the spell were implemented this way, it would effectively be ultra-mega-Passage of Golubria with damage division on top - no reinventing LoS, just some whacky teleportation shenanigans with Benny Hill music for a while.
Last edited by Tressol on Saturday, 21st November 2015, 07:35, edited 1 time in total.
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Post Saturday, 21st November 2015, 07:14

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

**not replying to Tressol until next post**

"dissing" is relative, it's equal part praise for how good the tiles version is.

Compare DoomRL, where you don't see health bars in tiles or console. In fact, that game has an information leak that is much easier to notice in console. On top of that, it basically has a Detect Monsters spell that allows you to monitor the whole map, which you can't do in tiles without scrolling or having a huge monitor, like 1080p.

Speaking of Detect Monsters - that's a kind of LOS extension because it lets you detect and track monsters beyond the standard 7-tile radius. And yet we have this effect in the game, and people can play console with Detect Monsters. Which, according to ontoclasm, is unequivocally unacceptable. Period. End of story. No exceptions, ever. He's talking about Crawl 0.17!

ebering wrote:The list referred to is ctrl+x. Also * and + cycle through things in x mode.


I know, I use those all the time, they're great, and I only play tiles. (you meant - and = for cycling, I think)

dpeg wrote:whatever you propose does not work properly in console mode

Sure it does, despite what ontoclasm claimed. It's just less convenient to make sure you're fully informed when playing console, but same goes for a lot of things, even simple AoE damage spells.
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Post Saturday, 21st November 2015, 07:36

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

Tressol wrote:Littering the area with copies of yourself could quite interesting if you were able to attack from any of them on any given turn - I feel like this is the original intent. To that end give "unlimited" instant controlled blinks to the locations of your copies, but possibly prevent movement by walking. Then, you can "Hyperstep" (via Abilities menus) to get to whichever copy you want and, should you need to flee, you simply end the spell. Until then it gives you new vectors for attack while potentially giving amazing defense if used properly.

Opening up so much map that it won't fit the console is a major problem. The simplest solution I see (which might actually be somewhat overpowered) is for the copies not to grant LoS at all until you "occupy" one with the Hyperstep. Presumably, you would know where the copies were even if they are out of your LoS, but until you step into one, you don't see what it sees. Performing the instant action of stepping in should check stealth against any monsters that are in LoS (not sure if instant actions normally result in a stealth/monster awareness check), thus it's a bit risky to scout with because, well, you might wake up the dungeon. If the spell were implemented this way, it would effectively be ultra-mega-Passage of Golubria with damage division on top - no reinventing LoS, just some whacky teleportation shenanigans with Benny Hill music for a while.


Your idea of the spell is to summon pods in your vinicity, which allow you to instantly teleport back and forth between them. That's different - you are not so much becoming many as creating a bunch of points you can hop between. In this case there is no particular reason to have damage reduction, or to have the pods be attackable as your own self, else we can attach damage sharing / reduction to any summon. The pods can then just be stationary summons with a fixed HP pool of their own. In summary, this is an instant kinda-controlled blink (IKCBlink?) which you must set up by creating pods, and which is constrained to teleporting into those pods. Not as dramatic as OP with its multipresence, at least. Furthermore, if pod-hopping is instant and free, then it's scummy because you could hop between all pods in one turn just to gather maximum information about the surroundings, and if it's not instant and free, then what exactly are you left with?

Tressol wrote:(not sure if instant actions normally result in a stealth/monster awareness check)

They do not. Stealth check happens at the beginning of a monster's turn, before it takes any action.

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Post Saturday, 21st November 2015, 07:50

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

Well, the point is how to represent being in all these places at once... As I mentioned, using it for information gathering is risky because you could alert more monsters who shout, roar, etc and wake up the rest of the otherwise dormant foes. If we don't want players getting extra actions out of the bargain (turning them into summoned illusions of oneself), then "pods" seems like the simplest way to model the effect in question. The ability to act at any of several places while also "spreading oneself out" in order to (hopefully) take less damage is the desired effect, unless I am mistaken.

Anyway, targeting from a point where the PC technically isn't would involve a lot of goofy new code having to be written. "Hyperstepping" into one of the clones/pods has identical effects (well, depending on how we solve the LoS riddle) and does not involve having to code a bunch of weird new stuff. You are still "at" each point, represented by the fact that you take damage (though less) any time one of the spacetime clones would be damaged, but only the one you are stepped into is acting on a given turn. More accurately, the ability I proposed calling "Hyperstep" is simply selecting which of the spaces that you occupy you will act from this turn, so perhaps "Hyperstep" is not the best name for it, but it's a placeholder name, anyhow.

Edit: The scummy behavior you are worried about is something that's just a given in the OP - you will see all this stuff, effectively through walls. What I propose is to pre-empt the problems involved in seeing all this stuff all at once by having you see a "normal" amount of it at any given time.
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Post Saturday, 21st November 2015, 08:02

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

They do not. Stealth check happens at the beginning of a monster's turn, before it takes any action.


According to LearnDB and the Wiki, this is not the case and stealth is rolled each time the player acts. Otherwise, Nagas would effectively be bad at Stealth and moving fast would make you an amazing stabber, sometimes not even allowing an awareness check. All that said, I don't know if instant actions "count."
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Post Saturday, 21st November 2015, 09:40

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

Yes, each time the player acts, not per enemy action. But it happens after you take that action, at your new location, which is why walking away from a monster that wanders into your LOS does not have it notice you. Huh, I don't know - when you get teleported into a new area, stuff wakes up immediately, but it also gets a turn. There's a bunch of instant stuff like Peek at Two that evidently doesn't make more monsters notice you. Xom multi-teleports are instant, and from what I can tell they don't wake stuff up. How I think it works: when you do an action that has a delay, that makes time pass, monsters get a chance to notice you. But there are currently zero foolproof instant ways to set up a nice stab without enchantments (I think that's ok) which a version of your spell might make possible depending on how this works.

Tressol wrote:Well, the point is how to represent being in all these places at once...

But in your version you're not spreading yourself out, you're making new places where you can be. That you talk about there being "one you are stepped into" means there is a difference between the clones, so it's not so much an implementation of the OP as a substitute (can we call it Hyperstepper?). Outside of your new proposal, and the epicenter discussions above, there is no distinction between clones - clones are all you and you are all clones. Now, an implementation of Hyperphase is possible where you select a clone every turn and get to do an action with it, but that would 1)be tedious, 2)give the spell a banal feel, 3)discourage creative uses of the spell, 4)let you do anything without meaningful non-arbitrary restrictions, 5)???. And even in that case, you could still give the player the LOS of all clones combined, unless he got it in his mind to make one clone walk off far away from others. But let's not waste any time on patently terrible implementations of Hyperphase.

Tressol wrote:Edit: The scummy behavior you are worried about is something that's just a given in the OP - you will see all this stuff, effectively through walls

you will - all at once. You won't have to activate a special ability N times every turn to see all this stuff. That's the OP way.

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Post Saturday, 21st November 2015, 19:15

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

The Epicenter way holds more problems (for me), namely that you are "at" all these places but not able to act from them. Of course, the LoS Scummyness of the Hyperstepper approach could be short-circuited by simply giving all the LoS from the start, similar to the OP. At which point Hyperstepping (again, a bad name for what I'm talking about, I realize) in effect is simply choosing where you are at the moment you "act," and would only ever reasonably need to be used once a turn, and often no times per turn (after all, if you plan to fire a few iron shots at a couple of Fiends, you probably won't need a new angle each turn). Okay, you might use it more than once per turn to like, check the chances of your hexes affecting foes on different sides of the now-enormous battlefield, potentially.

The difference between the clones is only which one is acting - they all still take damage and have all your AC, EV, Resistance, Intrinsics, Etc. I used less-than-ideal language from a flavor perspective, but I fail to see the functional difference between a bunch of "pods" that share these properties and all damage among one another (and the player) and what Epicenter would do (except that Epicenter would not allow the Hyperstep "re-position" repeatedly).

Ultimately, I proposed limiting LoS to the "active" clone as a way of not having to worry about one's LoS going off-screen. That is not essential to the Hyperstepper version of the spell.

The point is to use existent and/or simple code where possible to create the desired effect. What is the desired effect, if not to a) reducing damage in a new and (multiple) position-dependent way and b) allowing one to act from one of a number of positions on a given turn? If anything, Epicenter gives privileged status to the central "instance" of the caster. With Hyperstepper, each clone has the potential to be that center clone on each action. They are homogeneous, but for game purposes, one has to be the "active" one to create the desired effect (so far as I can see). Swapping positions is already in the code (Swap card), which just leaves the clones themselves (similar to summons, mostly), the damage sharing (similar to the Spectral Weapon effect, but with some numbers changed) and (most likely) some LoS wackiness.

Am I missing something? What is the desired in-game effect?
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Post Saturday, 21st November 2015, 20:54

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

Detect Creatures, since you insist on ramming your head against the wall, currently exists in exactly two forms. A rare Xom effect, which is a joke, and via Ashenzari.

The Xom effect is equivalent to the old spell Detect Creatures -- it happens instantaneously, similar to magic mapping. You don't have to check every turn, because it only happens once. You look around once, as you do when using a mmap scroll. This is fine; the problem is when you have to do it every single turn.

Ash detection does indeed happen continuously. Know what its maximum radius is? You obviously don't. It's seven tiles. You detect things that would be in your line of sight, but are behind walls etc.

You didn't mention item detection, etc. available via Ash as well as e.g. the Dowsing card. Guess what its radius is. Go on, guess.

I appreciate your dedication, but when three different devs state flatout "this will not happen" maybe you should reconsider your position.

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Post Sunday, 22nd November 2015, 07:46

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

devs can do what they want. If they want to remove mountain dwarves, they can remove mountain dwarves. If they want to keep food, they can keep food. (This is a good thing.) Why should that affect my position?

ontoclasm wrote:Detect Creatures, since you insist on ramming your head against the wall, currently exists in exactly two forms. A rare Xom effect, which is a joke, and via Ashenzari.

The Xom effect is equivalent to the old spell Detect Creatures -- it happens instantaneously, similar to magic mapping. You don't have to check every turn, because it only happens once. You look around once, as you do when using a mmap scroll. This is fine; the problem is when you have to do it every single turn.

That is absolutely untrue, AKA a bald-headed lie.

I don't know how the Xom effect works (as if Xom needs to be consistent) but the dowsing card continuously updates the positions of monsters far beyond your LOS as long as you have the Emp status effect, and it can last a long time.

I did not have Ash in mind - I know he won't put item/threat symbols on your screen if you have nothing blocking or reducing your LOS. But since you brought Ash up, why leave out passive mapping? It reveals far-off tiles with almost every step. You can get away with sub-optimally not looking beyond your LOS, which renders most passive mapping moot, but the fact remains that devs thought it would be a good idea to give players passive mapping.

You seem to enjoy having found a seeming shortcoming and latched on to it, painting it inexcusable, while the same thing has been going on under your nose for versions.

And there has been nothing to cause alarm in the first place, at all. Like, when you first brought this up, you pictured an Ancient Lich coming around and sneaking up on you. By the way, if an ancient lich is a serious threat even after the damage reduction, you'd be already in big danger and checking the whole screen every turn, or more likely, escaping. Anyway, suppose lich walks into view. In console, as in tiles, you would still see it among the list of monsters on the right, below the statuses bar. If this is your first time ever seeing the lich, you'll also get the message that an ancient lich walks into view.

Now, there are things that can fail to get your attention if you're not looking - silence/umbra/halo auras. They're not announced so you can skip turns while they enter your LOS. But this can already happen during the equivalent and much more common practice of tabbing and auto-exploring: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=16071 In either case it can be avoided with a modicum of vigilance.

Don't even get me started on the unpreventable deprivation of information Crawl enforces. Like when an invisible orc wizard or Sigmund throws flame at you, there's a brief streak across the screen telling you where the caster is. Missed it? Too bad! Unless the game froze at that exact moment and prompted you to press a key, in which case you can see the entire streak frozen in place. (Admittedly Crawl has been becoming better with this: it used to be that a monster wandering in and out of view would leave no trace. You wouldn't know where you saw it and you missed the opportunity to xv it. In later versions, as it leaves, the monster can leave an imprint of itself outside your LOS as a remembered monster.) From some of your earliest gameplay, Crawl is already telling you that such interface screws don't matter, and the game is to be enjoyed regardless.

Are we ready to stop pretending that "console users might need to scroll sometimes" is some kind of dealbreaker?

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Post Sunday, 22nd November 2015, 08:29

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

Pollen_Golem wrote:devs can do what they want. If they want to remove mountain dwarves, they can remove mountain dwarves. If they want to keep food, they can keep food. (This is a good thing.)

I mean, if you're saying "devs can do what they want, and this is a good thing," I totally agree. But if you're saying "food...is a good thing," well, dang.

Why should that affect my position?

Do you actually want the spell in the game? If so, what the devs think seems like it ought to be factored into your position. This is especially true when you can't or won't code something up yourself (though I'd love to see what a playable version of this spell looks like), in which case getting the devs to want what you want is especially important. And it's hard to convince people to change their minds when you're playing rhetorical hardball with them, in my experience; insulting console players and calling devs liars isn't really top-tier persuasiveness.

Of course, if you just want to argue, don't let any of that stop you. It's not against the rules to disagree with the devs; it's just against the rules to be a jerk about it.
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Post Sunday, 22nd November 2015, 08:47

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

oh? there's a specific rule against being a jerk about disagreeing with the devs? and there's no rule against incorrectly pontificating on how obviously ignorant another poster is? my, my, what a canny rule-navigator ontoclasm is!

I assumed position refers to an internal perspective or something.
Tressol wrote:1. in effect is simply choosing where you are at the moment you "act,"

2. The difference between the clones is only which one is acting

3. Ultimately, I proposed limiting LoS to the "active" clone as a way of not having to worry about one's LoS going off-screen.

4. The point is to use existent and/or simple code where possible to create the desired effect.

5. damage sharing (similar to the Spectral Weapon effect, but with some numbers changed)

1, 2.
When I wrote post #55 or so in this thread, I hadn't yet realized how many involuntary player-centered effects there are in the game. If they were virtually negligible, it could be ok to make them blockable entirely with this spell. Having them equally land on every clone is wrong, and dividing each one's effectiveness by N leaves too many questions open. So they need to stay and happen at 1 clone. But it makes little sense for you choose the clone that receives the involuntary player-centered effect, so it should happen at a random clone. And that introduces a discrepancy between choosing the location where you act, and not choosing the location where you are acted upon. A discrepancy that would better be eliminated by making voluntary player-centered effects take place at a random, unchosen clone...

...After you do that, beams, which by definition go travel out from a player's center, could be allowed to be shot from a clone randomly selected by the RNG. This would even work with weird stuff like lightning rod - the game doesn't crash if an enemy makes you blink between zaps of lightning rod. But in all fairness, if you refuse to use your RNG-given position, you should be forced to forfeit the turn and maybe even the charges/piety/card/mana. That forfeiture is not something players are used to when deciding their beam, and it would be very unwelcome. So let's ban beams in Hyperphase.

With these restrictions, it's still powerful for a level-9 spell and it blocks optimal-but-tedious player actions like switching bodies to see hex success chances as you suggested. There are enough player-targeted effects that care about what you can see but not where you are.

3.
That introduces more problems than it solves.

4.
Yes, I think it's better to use existing code i.e. whenever possible, let the code arbitrate what happens when unforeseen things happen.

5.
Well, it would not be like Spectral Weapon because that assumes multiple separate health bars for each iteration of the player. It would be like deep dwarf damage shaving, only proportional instead of..erm..linear?..absolute?

I agree with your arguments against Epicenter.
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Post Sunday, 22nd November 2015, 11:09

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

Pollen_Golem wrote:oh? there's a specific rule against being a jerk about disagreeing with the devs? and there's no rule against incorrectly pontificating on how obviously ignorant another poster is? my, my, what a canny rule-navigator ontoclasm is!

The rule is simple: "Do not harass or insult other users." That goes for devs and players alike. Ontoclasm's constructive criticism in this thread, which in no way resembles "incorrectly pontificating on how obviously ignorant another poster is," doesn't break this rule.

If anybody actually wants to have a non-snarky discussion about the rules, start a Suggestions & Criticism thread or PM a mod. As for this thread, I think it has outlived its usefulness, but I've participated too much in it to feel comfortable locking it myself. There's probably room in the game for an interesting tloc spell/artifact incorporating player character clones, and I imagine we'll have more luck starting from scratch instead of trying to hammer Hyperphase into a spell that works.

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Post Sunday, 22nd November 2015, 12:33

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

archaeo wrote:As for this thread, I think it has outlived its usefulness

I agree.
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