Hepliaklqana and cats

[Hellmonk]

Hepliaklqana's no cat policy strikes me as a very silly flavor thing with no reasonable balance justification. Crawl already has a bunch of these flavor restrictions (Yred and gargoyles, good goods/Fedhas and undead, Beogh and everything except hill orc), and I think that for the most part they don't add much to the game while taking away potentially interesting choices from the player. These other restrictions also make a lot more sense from a flavor perspective than Hepli's restriction. It's immediately obvious why good gods don't like undead species but not why the god of ancestors doesn't like Felids. I understand there's plenty of developer opposition to changing Beogh and the others despite a vocal section of the player base supporting a change, but I feel like adding a new species restriction to a brand new god is the wrong way to go. My suggestion is to remove Felids in crawl 0.19.

[Malevolent]

It's simple. Hep is more of a dog person. Or maybe they have cat hair allergies. Yeah, I don't know why Hep doesn't like Felids but I guess a reason can be invented.

My suggestion is to remove Felids in crawl 0.19.

And you lost me there. You will pry Felids out of my cold, dead paws!

[duvessa]

I suggest removing Hepliaklqana in 0.19 as well.

[crate]

i think the "justification" is that felids can't use equipment and your ancestor uses equipment

of course, this should mean that he[lp] also dislikes at least octopodes, probably

(related: please remove dith's fire conduct)

[HardboiledGargoyle]

(related: please remove dith's fire conduct)

yah it's weird, fire casts shadows anyway... how about a light conduct? that would only make him hate corona, gnoll shamans, fauns, Dowan, Kirke, that Brilliance eveningstar, and holy beings.

[duvessa]

(related: please remove dith's fire conduct)

yah it's weird, fire casts shadows anyway... how about a light conduct? that would only make him hate corona, gnoll shamans, fauns, Dowan, Kirke, that Brilliance eveningstar, and holy beings.

we've reached peak irony

[chequers]

Dith used to dislike light, but it was changed to fire because what counted as light and what didn't was considered too confusing. Commit 1f4ad91 for more info.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

lol, okay... I thought it'd have made more sense to have Dith hate the opposite of an umbra and that which cancels umbra, which players can only breach by wielding one particular unrand or casting the game's only level-1 hex, rather than a very common element, with a whole magic school devoted to it, that has no interaction with umbra at all!

Make Dithmenos specifically hate fire

As opposed to "fire and Corona and haloes". The latter conducts
were a bottomless can of worms.

The new conduct is themed as Dithmenos having an age-old grudge
against fire. This means that Corona is now OK, as is the
Eveningstar of Brilliance; however, the latter's halo illuminates
nothing beyond them player themself while following Dithmenos,
which seems like a pretty reasonable & thematic setup.

[genericpseudonym]

Hating light is definitely more thematic but hating fire is more straightforward and simple for players to understand. Everyone can see that corona or haloes would be bad but what about things like mutagenic glow or Olgreb's Toxic Radiance? How about "your rapier glows with a cold blue light?"

[Wahaha]

Make him hate halos and halo monsters. So mace of brilliance is not allowed, and monsters with halos give bonus piety. Keeps the flavor and is irrelevant otherwise.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

Hating light is definitely more thematic but hating fire is more straightforward and simple for players to understand. Everyone can see that corona or haloes would be bad but what about things like mutagenic glow or Olgreb's Toxic Radiance? How about "your rapier glows with a cold blue light?"

Those are light sources in flavor only, not mechanics, and it's easy to imagine them casting shadows more than erasing them, whereas halos explicitly expose. Glow was even reflavored to contamination way before Dith was created. Dith should be all like "bruh just don't mess up muh umbra." But hey, maybe I'm just making a fool of myself, rehashing old conversations.

btw... "The [Corona and Halo] conducts were a bottomless can of worms." - howw?? One spell and an unrand: a can of worms; not only deeper than FIRE, but BOTTOMLESS?

[le_nerd]

I thought the flavor behind Hep/Felids was the nine live re-incarnation thing cats do. Eg. at some point your most powerful ancestor will be you.

[4Hooves2Appendages]

I'd rather keep cats than yet another half-baked god (YAHG).

[dpeg]

Every day, I thank every half-baked god we don't have to ask players for permissions.

[4Hooves2Appendages]

In the spirit of taking everything in good faith. Are you saying that all the gods that make it into stable versions are 'fully-baked'? Also, permissions for what?

Out of curiosity, whose idea was Gozag?

[dpeg]

4H2A: This thread contains a posting by duvessa about removing a god that has been branched into trunk just hours ago. It contains your posting about dismissing Hepliaklqana (and perhaps also Ukayaw, not clear from context), too.

There's no contextual feedback whatsoever in these two postings. So to me, they display pure hostility. (This is also why I think that posters like duvessa make this forum an outright toxic place, until there's nobody left who seriously wants to discuss Crawl. On top of the snarky one-linerism, there's also the social aspect: somebody came up with the idea for the new god, and coded them. I have played both H and U, and they're genuinely distinct from all other gods. This is a huge achievement given how large Crawl's pantheon is by now. There has been a lot of work going into these gods, including a lot of polishing and balancing. I think the most polite way of expressing my feelings in English is: fuck you too.)

To answer your question: What does "fully-baked" mean for you? This is an amateur game project. (However, I have a little insight into professional video game develepment, and I'm not convinced their design standards are actually higher than ours. Just so nobody misunderstands me here: their *production values* are much, much higher than anything in the roguelike genre, including DCSS.)

For me, "fully-baked" would mean three things: (1) distinct from the other gods, (2) polished by Crawl standards, this is about interface and power level, (3) carries enough flavour that you can explain the god easily to a non-crawler.

Gozag was exclusively my idea. (The other gods I helped design were: Lugonu, Beogh, Ashenzari, Fedhas but these were all group efforts. I also modified a number of existing gods.) Since you bring this up in this thread, right after half-baked vs fully-baked, I assume you put Gozag into the former camp. I am quite happy with the gold god, there is one change that should be done: currently, you are incentivised to hunt down and kill monsters forever, also on fully cleared levels, for the gold. That has to stop, the idea I came up with is making Time Is Money a Gozag rule: for each level, after some amount of turns (doesn't matter too much how many), corpses don't yield gold. (They can disappear or stay corpses or becomes fools' gold, i.e. distract monsters but don't increase your purse.)

[adozu]

gozag paid to be in the game

when it realised the dungeon wasn't source of as much business as expected he closed off the branch and fired all the related eployee

[4Hooves2Appendages]

dpeg: Thanks for clarifying your position.

To clarify my position, I just wanted to say that I like felids and want to keep them. I have no such attachment for the new gods. Someone further up suggested that felids be removed, and I'd rather keep cats than a new feature that somehow interacts strangely with small mammals. Of course that's a false dichotomy, but hey, it's CYC.

I brought up Gozag because it seemed to attract a larger amount of criticism than usual. From my perspective there were a number of issues to address before I would've personally added it to stable. To provide a counter example, I think Ru was pretty good when it went stable.

But sure, I can understand that opinions on this vary. And sure it's an amateur project. But the project is public and as such there will be public criticism. The nature of the internet, sadly, means that some will be aggressive and over the top. I harbour no ill feelings towards you, although I don't agree with everything you (or anyone else for that matter) writes.

[Elitist]

That has to stop, the idea I came up with is making Time Is Money a Gozag rule: for each level, after some amount of turns (doesn't matter too much how many), corpses don't yield gold. (They can disappear or stay corpses or becomes fools' gold, i.e. distract monsters but don't increase your purse.)

Please don't nerf Gozag, or else we'll go back to Oka for items and Sif for Mummies. He's fine as is, full clearing is fine in anything but a speedrun, and the only thing anyone speedruns is MiBe and MuSu. Please dpeg I need Gozag to carry me he's so good.

[dpeg]

Elitist: full clearing is fine. The problem with Gozag is that you're encouraged to linger around *after clearing* a level. And that's not healthy. There are various ways to address this; I mentioned one which I find thematic. Another would be to simply hand out no money for monsters spawned after initial generation. That's very direct, but less flavourful; and I think time=miney could lead to more interesting gameplay, too, especially once/when/if the food conduct disappears (because food is changed).

Glad you like Gozzy

[dynast]

You devs still think that spawning more monsters is a good idea?

[dpeg]

dynast: That is a different question. Personally, I don't think so but unless/until this is changed, I'd like to play Gozag without having to restrain myself.

[TeshiAlair]

The only thing I dislike about Dith's conduct is it makes playing an Artificer of Dith pointlessly annoying early game.

[Lasty]

Thanked first post for suggesting felid removal.

[Croases]

Hepliaklqana doesn't seem like an especially awful god, but it does have an especially awful mechanic in forbidding worship from a completely random species for virtually no reason and to the detriment of gameplay experience.

I think this should be removed, alongside Beogh, Yred and Dithmenos' equally arbitrary restrictions (Gargoyles are part-living already, just add zombies/skeletons for them and call it a day). These things make the game worse while having questionable flavor benefits at best.

Too bad whenever I ask dpeg about how anyone can justify keeping these mechanics in the game, he seems to vanish altogether, probably because he can't either.

[dpeg]

Croases: I am responsible for Beogh, and I have defended the decision to restrict followers to orcs. It's pure flavour. I assume that's "virtually no reason" but I don't mind.

[Croases]

If you''ve designed Beogh, then all the more reason for you to endeavor to make him better, instead of him remaining as a terrible niche god that forces you to play a single species and isn't even picked by Korean speedrunners anymore.

Beogh's orcs-only gimmick is both exceptionally restrictive and utterly meaningless. It isn't like Trog where you get incredibly powerful abilities in return for giving up another set of incredibly powerful abilities, it's like if Trog loved battleaxes and hated any other weapon and deduced piety for using any weapon that isn't an axe.

[dpeg]

I don't think I'll convince you. (The crucial point is that "better" means different things for us.)

We've covered a number of gods already, in a thread about cats.

[PleasingFungus]

solution that will make everyone happy: keep beogh, but restrict him to felids only instead

the cat messiah of the orcish peoples

[duvessa]

4H2A: This thread contains a posting by duvessa about removing a god that has been branched into trunk just hours ago. It contains your posting about dismissing Hepliaklqana (and perhaps also Ukayaw, not clear from context), too.

There's no contextual feedback whatsoever in these two postings. So to me, they display pure hostility. (This is also why I think that posters like duvessa make this forum an outright toxic place, until there's nobody left who seriously wants to discuss Crawl. On top of the snarky one-linerism, there's also the social aspect: somebody came up with the idea for the new god, and coded them. I have played both H and U, and they're genuinely distinct from all other gods. This is a huge achievement given how large Crawl's pantheon is by now. There has been a lot of work going into these gods, including a lot of polishing and balancing. I think the most polite way of expressing my feelings in English is: fuck you too.)

To answer your question: What does "fully-baked" mean for you? This is an amateur game project. (However, I have a little insight into professional video game develepment, and I'm not convinced their design standards are actually higher than ours. Just so nobody misunderstands me here: their *production values* are much, much higher than anything in the roguelike genre, including DCSS.)

For me, "fully-baked" would mean three things: (1) distinct from the other gods, (2) polished by Crawl standards, this is about interface and power level, (3) carries enough flavour that you can explain the god easily to a non-crawler.

Gozag was exclusively my idea. (The other gods I helped design were: Lugonu, Beogh, Ashenzari, Fedhas but these were all group efforts. I also modified a number of existing gods.) Since you bring this up in this thread, right after half-baked vs fully-baked, I assume you put Gozag into the former camp. I am quite happy with the gold god, there is one change that should be done: currently, you are incentivised to hunt down and kill monsters forever, also on fully cleared levels, for the gold. That has to stop, the idea I came up with is making Time Is Money a Gozag rule: for each level, after some amount of turns (doesn't matter too much how many), corpses don't yield gold. (They can disappear or stay corpses or becomes fools' gold, i.e. distract monsters but don't increase your purse.)

"Remove felids": a-ok
"Remove Hepliaklqana": OUTRIGHT TOXIC! FUCK YOU!

[all before]

dpeg: this is a meta-discussion, but I find it frustrating the number of your posts that feature phrases like "I don't think I can convince you," "it's purely subjective," "this is no longer worth discussing," "this idea is pure flavor [ie. bad design] but I don't care," and "the posts I disagree with are contentless." Such phrases suggest that, at best, whatever topic under discussion is not one worth discussing for you, so I'm not sure why you bother posting about them. At worst, they suggest you have trouble telling the difference between meaningful and meaningless discussion, as those phrases themselves are the most contentless, non-contributive sorts of things you can say in a discussion. Whatever the tone and snarkiness level of other posters, they at least are usually trying to think about the relation between crawl's design philosophy and its implementation, whereas you are meaninglessly dismissing all comments you disagree with as meaningless.

I considered flagging the post in which you tell your players to fuck off, but I thought this was a better route.

[infinitevox]

Elitist: full clearing is fine. The problem with Gozag is that you're encouraged to linger around *after clearing* a level. And that's not healthy. There are various ways to address this; I mentioned one which I find thematic. Another would be to simply hand out no money for monsters spawned after initial generation. That's very direct, but less flavourful; and I think time=miney could lead to more interesting gameplay, too, especially once/when/if the food conduct disappears (because food is changed).

Glad you like Gozzy

I'm also a huge fan of Gozag. (Did not like the recent gold distraction change, but I understand why it was done)
I don't think there is any problem lingering around a level "after clearing."
Sure, you'll earn a few more gold pieces, but the monster difficulty ramps up fast enough that you'll get utterly destroyed if you are trying to gold-scum.
And by the time you're capable of handling all the increased monster difficulty, you've already got enough gold/items that it becomes completely superfluous.

As for Beogh,
He's Orc Jesus. So it makes sense that only Orcs can worship him. I've honestly never played with this god, because I never play Orcs, but I appreciate the flavor. I'm not gonna get all buttmad because I wanna play a Ds^Beogh and have an army of other Ds following me around destroying things. The entire god is built and balanced around Orcs, opening it up to all the other species would require completely re-balancing the god, which to me looks like a nightmare.

Dith,
I don't understand why people get upset over the conduct. Yes, it restricts your play. It also gives you very nice benefits for that restriction. To me it makes just as much sense to say, "Well, I want all of Ru's benefits but I don't want to sacrifice anything." The god of darkness and sneaky things doesn't like fire, big surprise! Is the conduct that abhorrent to people because Fire just happens to have such a large number of spells/items/abilities, and you feel you're missing out? What if as compensation, Dith protected (or gave a chance to protect) against Damnation and Fire magic?
I'm just spitballing, but I really don't understand the strong dislike for the conduct.

Hepliaklqana,
I admit I don't understand the "No cats" conduct. This one doesn't make any sense to me gameplay or flavor-wise. If anything, I would argue that Hep shouldn't allow undead/non-living, because it could be argued that they don't really have family ancestors anymore anyway.
@dpeg, I see where you going with most of the things you've come up with, but I'm lost on this one. It really does seem like a completely arbitrary conduct thrown in there for the sake of, "Look! It's different!!"

[Croases]

As for Beogh,
He's Orc Jesus. So it makes sense that only Orcs can worship him. I've honestly never played with this god, because I never play Orcs, but I appreciate the flavor. I'm not gonna get all buttmad because I wanna play a Ds^Beogh and have an army of other Ds following me around destroying things. The entire god is built and balanced around Orcs, opening it up to all the other species would require completely re-balancing the god, which to me looks like a nightmare.

For the record, the "open Beogh to all species" proposal entails making everyone be able to worship Beogh while still getting orcish followers. No Ds followers for Ds, felid followers (?!) for felids etc., just that you can be the human or gargoyle or felid savior of orcs.

Beogh was balanced around orc followers, but it was not balanced around orc worshipers. Any other race can worship him without any gameplay problems, but they're prevented from doing so for no good reason. Beogh canonically accepts non-orc worshipers in Mennas' backstory, so this should be okay flavor-wise too.

Also, here's a bit of l'esprit de l'escalier: dpeg said that he has defended orc-only Beogh before, but I don't recall ever hearing an actual defense from him. All he did was to restate his position ("I want Beogh to retain its race restrictions") over and over, which isn't much of a defense.

[CanOfWorms]

good (or bad, depending on your opinion of hep/felids) news

things like mutagenic glow

Those are light sources in flavor only, not mechanics

btw... "The [Corona and Halo] conducts were a bottomless can of worms." - howw?? One spell and an unrand: a can of worms

mutagenic glow is explicitly the same as corona in-game, c.f. ugly things, and there are a lot of monsters that glow. Did you know... that eidolons glow???

[andreas]

So I guess it's fine to derail (further) now?

Beogh canonically accepts non-orc worshipers in Mennas' backstory, so this should be okay flavor-wise too.

Are people talking about Mennas' flavour description when they mention his backstory? The assertion in the quote seems like an over-reading of that description.

(I've seen this claimed a few times, and I always wonder if there is some other text that is meant.)

[Tiktacy]

@Dpeg: People get pissed off at you because you are Guy Fieri, you are the Flavor Town Guy. Now, this would normally be just fine, but part of crawls design goals is putting gameplay above flavor, but you don't always do that, and people really hate it when you go against something that a game is known for. Imagine if in sonic the hedgehog, there was a snail character that moved really slowly, that doesn't mean that slow and steady is a bad thing, but nobody is going to like the slow guy in a game based around going fast.

I think you need to try moving away from being the slow snail. You can still believe in "slow and steady wins the race" but you need to still keep up with the fast pace to a certain extent. Speed is relative, you can simply move "slower" than others and still stick by going slow and steady. Likewise, you can still believe in "Flavor is important" without believing "Flavor over gameplay."

Do I dislike you? Do I not value your opinion? No(to both), of course I value your opinion, but you sure as hell piss me off a lot of the time, unlike other devs, and this thread is no exception.

Also, anybody who unironically wants to try removing felids is on crack. Why in trogs name would you cry removing an actually unique species when species like halflings and kobolds still exist? I mean, I'd be willing to bet most people have certain species they don't like, I hate playing formicids/demigods/ghouls, but I would never suggestion their removal. I get the feeling people are just kidding about this, but I feel the need to say that just in case, I must defend my feline friends!

[PleasingFungus]

Are people talking about Mennas' flavour description when they mention his backstory? The assertion in the quote seems like an over-reading of that description.

(I've seen this claimed a few times, and I always wonder if there is some other text that is meant.)

yeah

By all accounts the orcs were
not happy with Mennas. They demanded he swear Beogh was the one true god, and
when Mennas remained silent they cut out his tongue.

i think there's a lot of room for interpretation here; easy to think of ways in which the orcs might demand recognition of beogh's supremacy without actually accepting non-orcs as proper followers. it'd be fair to argue either way, except that everything else in crawl indicates that Beogh only accepts orcs.

[PleasingFungus]

@Dpeg: People get pissed off at you because you are Guy Fieri, you are the Flavor Town Guy. Now, this would normally be just fine, but part of crawls design goals is putting gameplay above flavor, but you don't always do that, and people really hate it when you go against something that a game is known for. Imagine if in sonic the hedgehog, there was a snail character that moved really slowly, that doesn't mean that slow and steady is a bad thing, but nobody is going to like the slow guy in a game based around going fast.

hahahahahahahahaha

[CanOfWorms]

Why in trogs name would you cry removing an actually unique species when species like halflings and kobolds still exist?

Imagine if in sonic the hedgehog, there was a snail character that moved really slowly, that doesn't mean that slow and steady is a bad thing, but nobody is going to like the slow guy in a game based around going fast.

[Croases]

it'd be fair to argue either way, except that everything else in crawl indicates that Beogh only accepts orcs.

Is there anything else in Crawl that indicates that Beogh only accepts orcs, other than Beogh only accepting orcs?

I think Mennas' flavor is the only other place where Beogh plays a central role, but I might be wrong.

[Tiktacy]

Why in trogs name would you cry removing an actually unique species when species like halflings and kobolds still exist?

Imagine if in sonic the hedgehog, there was a snail character that moved really slowly, that doesn't mean that slow and steady is a bad thing, but nobody is going to like the slow guy in a game based around going fast.

Are you making a joke or does the difference between these two things actually not make sense to you?

[CanOfWorms]

the snail is a metaphor for felids

[Lasty]

My big problem is that felids basically play a game w/o loot (well, very little loot), and in my opinion loot is a defining feature of crawl. Loot leads to excitement, and loot leads to differentiation of characters as you find different loot at different times, and make choices over which loot to use and which to ignore. The lack of loot makes most felids feel really similar from game to game, and means that many of the moments of excitement (discovery of a loot hoard!) have no emotional or decision-making weight attached.

[dpeg]

dpeg said that he has defended orc-only Beogh before, but I don't recall ever hearing an actual defense from him. All he did was to restate his position ("I want Beogh to retain its race restrictions") over and over, which isn't much of a defense.

I don't know if you realise this, but you are not entitled to a reply. Beogh is the orc god because we like it. What else do you want? A proof? A poll showing that Korean players would start WW3 if we open up Beogh?

Lasty: perhaps Felids should be on the chopping block?

[PleasingFungus]

Is there anything else in Crawl that indicates that Beogh only accepts orcs, other than Beogh only accepting orcs?

I think Mennas' flavor is the only other place where Beogh plays a central role, but I might be wrong.

there are hundreds of Beogh worshippers in a typical game of crawl. every one of them is an orc

if you worship beogh, every follower he gifts you is an orc

etc

[Tiktacy]

it'd be fair to argue either way, except that everything else in crawl indicates that Beogh only accepts orcs.

Is there anything else in Crawl that indicates that Beogh only accepts orcs, other than Beogh only accepting orcs?

I think Mennas' flavor is the only other place where Beogh plays a central role, but I might be wrong.

No, orcs and trolls both appear in orcish mines, where beogh is generally found.

The thing that most confuses me about beoghs flavor of only excepting orcs is that there already exists a god in the game that is the leader of a race that is not consistent with the players: Jiyva. I guess you could argue that maybe that would make them too similar, but thats no different then saying TSO and ely are too similar because they forbid undead and demonspawn races.

[Tiktacy]

My big problem is that felids basically play a game w/o loot (well, very little loot), and in my opinion loot is a defining feature of crawl. Loot leads to excitement, and loot leads to differentiation of characters as you find different loot at different times, and make choices over which loot to use and which to ignore. The lack of loot makes most felids feel really similar from game to game, and means that many of the moments of excitement (discovery of a loot hoard!) have no emotional or decision-making weight attached.

Doesn't removing felids for that sort of go against the whole idea of "Improve not remove" that I see from devs all the time?

Its really not that big of a stretch to allow felids to wear hats, gloves, and a cloak.

EDIT: Proof of concept

Spoiler: show

[pumpyscump]

On the derail topic: I wanna be the human saviour of the orcs so I can live out my favourite TV Trope! http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MightyWhitey

On the main topic: felids are weird, and Hepl is about old traditions, so Hepl should hate anything weird, incl octopodes and formicids. Or remove felids, that's fine too! But DrTm is also a pretty loot-free experience so I'm not sure that felids are all too unusual in that regard.

[PleasingFungus]

No, orcs and trolls both appear in orcish mines, where beogh is generally found.

The thing that most confuses me about beoghs flavor of only excepting orcs is that there already exists a god in the game that is the leader of a race that is not consistent with the players: Jiyva. I guess you could argue that maybe that would make them too similar, but thats no different then saying TSO and ely are too similar because they forbid undead and demonspawn races.

trolls do not worship beogh; it's a bit hard to confirm that in-game, but it is in the code, for whatever that's worth when elves show up in orc, are they beoghites?

i don't understand your point about jiyva at all, sorry.

[CanOfWorms]

Doesn't removing felids for that sort of go against the whole idea of "Improve not remove" that I see from devs all the time?

the improvements to mountain dwarves, singularity, amulets of rmut/clarity/warding...