Jiyva Starting Class

[wisp412]

I was thinking that a Jiyva fighter as a starting class would be fun. The main problem for this is that you start with Jiyva, which is going to eat all your early xp and items. So I was thinking that Jiyva would just be less active on the first few floors, and summon weaker, slower slimes on them by default (naturally spawning slimes would remain unchanged). The basic idea is to give you a guaranteed Jiyva start, with less tedium for characters that want to get Jiyva as early as possible (as the altar spawn is very random) but without severely gimping your character (for the first few levels). I was thinking that Jiyva followers could start with their choice of a (strong) mutation with equipment to suit it. It would be interesting if some races got their own choice of mutations.

Alternatively there could be a "better" chance for an earlier altar spawn. Perhaps at the entrance to hive, or in the first few dlvls of it, just so that its easier to get it early. I imagine that there are very few that want Jiyva early, but it should be an option.

[Croases]

There's this idea that Jiyva is balanced around the fact that it's a late-game god, which is true, and that it therefore has no business being a zealot/temple god, which is false. Early game Jiyva is strong but not optimal, and a player wanting to worship it early on can scum for slime temple, so there's no real reason not to put a Jiyva altar somewhere in the early dungeon. There's also little reason to oppose a slime knight class (which trades an early god for the major limitation of having no consumables) when the berserker class (which trades an early god for the major limitation of having no spells) exists, and frankly I'd rather see the latter removed in favor of the former because berserker is a ridiculously good start.

But Jiyva should not do special things for early starts, because a) special-casing things and not telling the players about it is the greatest heresy you can suggest on this board and b) you get a quick Slimify to compensate for your lack of consumables; if you want to get the early advantages of Jiyva then you should endure the early disadvantages too.

[ZipZipskins]

special-casing things and not telling the players about it is the greatest heresy you can suggest on this board

I'm pretty sure that's primarily because it's awful design to have special cases that subvert player expectations or understanding with no explanation

Re: slime knight, this isn't the first time it's been brought up. I like the idea of Jiyva being something that's easier to pick up than it currently is but the trend (and rightly so in my opinion) has been to pare down the number of zealot backgrounds rather than add to them.

There are a number of balance issues that make early Jiyva tough to work around such as a free slime rune and hoard- these things I think could be tweaked, but it would require a lot of work and/or alternate content to change them in a satisfactory way, so it's easier to just keep Jiyva the way it is.

[wisp412]

There's this idea that Jiyva is balanced around the fact that it's a late-game god, which is true, and that it therefore has no business being a zealot/temple god, which is false. Early game Jiyva is strong but not optimal, and a player wanting to worship it early on can scum for slime temple, so there's no real reason not to put a Jiyva altar somewhere in the early dungeon. There's also little reason to oppose a slime knight class (which trades an early god for the major limitation of having no consumables) when the berserker class (which trades an early god for the major limitation of having no spells) exists, and frankly I'd rather see the latter removed in favor of the former because berserker is a ridiculously good start.

But Jiyva should not do special things for early starts, because a) special-casing things and not telling the players about it is the greatest heresy you can suggest on this board and b) you get a quick Slimify to compensate for your lack of consumables; if you want to get the early advantages of Jiyva then you should endure the early disadvantages too.

To clarify I was suggesting that Jiyva would tone down the slimes up to dlvl 4 or so (right after early game) regardless of whether you start with him. So if you got a really early altar, or went back up the stairs there would be the same effect. If you were talking about picking a mutation right off the bat, then I agree that if you can pick one at character start you should be able to have the same choice when you start worshiping Jiyva.

I was also mostly suggesting the toning down slimes effect early because I don't know how harsh it would be on the early game, and the early game is already the most chaotic part of DCSS. I was assuming that it would have a large negative impact on a god that already has alot of negatives to it, so alleviating some of the very early disadvantages might make him a more favorable god choice early. I might be wrong about how large of an impact it would have though.

There are a number of balance issues that make early Jiyva tough to work around such as a free slime rune and hoard- these things I think could be tweaked, but it would require a lot of work and/or alternate content to change them in a satisfactory way, so it's easier to just keep Jiyva the way it is.

But can't you already rush Jiyva early, or scum for an early alter? From what I see, it should either be harder/ impossible to get Jiyva early or easier to get Jiyva early but with those balance issues in consideration.

[dynast]

I will just start by saying the reason jiyva is not in temple or a starting option is because it is a "anti-crawling" god - Jiyva eats the loot in the dungeon that the player is supposed to use to strategise a way to survive through the game, then gift mutations that replace equipament slots(such as resistances, AC from scales and so on). Now lets head for the quotes:

I was thinking that a Jiyva fighter as a starting class would be fun.

It would be fun for like the first few times you played it, then you realise how utterly broken it would be. What makes a early jiyva run fun is how rare it is to get one, jiyva is not that fun on itself if you look deeper into it. If you think the mutation ride alone is a fun factor there is Xom for you.

a player wanting to worship it early on can scum for slime temple, so there's no real reason not to put a Jiyva altar somewhere in the early dungeon.

I have only seem slime temple like 4 or 5 times on the 4000 times i played this game, so i doubt that. There are other early jiyva temples you can find, but goodluck start scumming those. It is much easier to just take a dive to lair and hope for the best, but then its not early anymore anyways.

[ZipZipskins]

But can't you already rush Jiyva early, or scum for an early alter? From what I see, it should either be harder/ impossible to get Jiyva early or easier to get Jiyva early but with those balance issues in consideration.

It's possible but extraordinarily unlikely and that's probably the way it should be.

[Sprucery]

I've never seen slime temple, and that makes me sad.

(I'm one of those who have proposed a Jiyva zealot and no, it won't happen.)

[bcadren]

Jiyva Zealot is interesting in the way that Troll is interesting. Jiyva is a very powerful god (perhaps more so than Trog, depending on your build). Choosing it first thing would make you...very powerful early, but then you'd be very short on items (most notably consumables and SPELLBOOKS later).

[dowan]

I personally would love to see a Jivya Zealot, as I think it would offer a pretty unique experience, but the devs have made it pretty clear they don't want a jivya background, and they don't want more zealot backgrounds.
Grumble grumble...

[Croases]

Well, let's put it like this: Assume that you want to worship Jiyva and don't want to do one of the easy god switches in the midgame. It is then optimal but incredibly tedious to startscum for slime temple/an early Jiyva altar. Crawl development places strong emphasis on removing optimal but tedious decisions. Therefore either Jiyva altars/slime temple ought to be removed, or there should be a more reliable means of worshiping Jiyva in the early game.

The problem here is not whether Jiyva is suitable as an early game god, but that Jiyva is available as an early game god in some but not all games. This should be fixed, but which way it should be fixed (Jiyva never available during early game/Jiyva always available during early game) is up to debate.

[Sar]

I still resent the removal of early jello altars. That said, this isn't really the topic but I really wish Jiyva was better. The mutations it gives currently aren't even comparable to what Xom provides.

[nago]

Yes, it is suggested it's the God of mutations but it's more the God of oneshot dangerous things and swap "a" screen every floor

[dynast]

Well, let's put it like this: Assume that you want to worship Jiyva and don't want to do one of the easy god switches in the midgame. It is then optimal but incredibly tedious to startscum for slime temple/an early Jiyva altar. Crawl development places strong emphasis on removing optimal but tedious decisions. Therefore either Jiyva altars/slime temple ought to be removed, or there should be a more reliable means of worshiping Jiyva in the early game.

What a strawman you build up there. How is the idea of losing a thousand games optimal in anyway? Early jiyva runs are the equivalent of finding Arga on d:4. You dont startscum for those, its just not possible.