Do you think Gnolls will make into stable release?

[Vajrapani]

Just came back to crawl after feeling burnt-out, and tried out the new Gnoll race. It's quite gimmicky but I actually really like the gimmick as opposed to species like octopode,felid,barachian etc. However it seems like there's a chance it may not make it into the stable release which would be a shame because it allows for a very unique playstyle that would be non-optimal on any other race with a certain strength(e.g. minotaur's godly melee aptitudes)

What's the general opinion on Gnolls? Do they just need a few things adjusted or are they pretty much confirmed for never making it out of trunk?

[duvessa]

Gnolls and WJC are disabled for 0.20 because they aren't really functional yet. This doesn't mean the developers have given up on them; on the contrary, the fact that they were disabled in stable only (and not in trunk) shows that someone on the devteam is invested in keeping them in the game.

In the meantime, if you really must play 0.20 instead of trunk, you can always play humans. The strategy for skill training on humans is almost identical to that for gnolls, although gnolls are significantly stronger due to their high apts and fangs.

[tasonir]

Honestly I like gnolls as they are, I understand that it's ideal for all races to spread out their skill training, but having a race which forces it while also prohibits* getting a skill over 15 is a significant change. I bet if you looked at the last 100 humans to win even just a 3 rune game, that 90% or more of them will have a skill over 18. I'd bet that very few gnolls won have a skill over 18.

*In reasonable cases; yes you could technically grind it out in extended, I don't consider it a problem if a 15 rune gnoll has one skill at 20 instead of the normal case where a 15 rune character can hit 27 in 2-3 skills if they want to (or hit 20 in 7 skills instead).

[Ultraviolent4]

In the meantime, if you really must play 0.20 instead of trunk, you can always play humans. The strategy for skill training on humans is almost identical to that for gnolls, although gnolls are significantly stronger due to their high apts and fangs.

Would you mind summarising that strategy in a few sentences? As someone who thinks Humans and Gnolls are very different in their approach to skill training, I'm curious to see how you're thinking.

[duvessa]

It's definitely different if you worship Trog or *snrk* Vehumet, but otherwise you're chasing the same goals: get a weapon to mindelay or near mindelay, or get some spells castable. Level 7 spells and 19+ delay weapons (except crossbows obviously) are bad investments for both species. Gn does have more bias towards demon weapons, maces, crossbows, and weapon switching, and late game you stop training fighting and defense skills earlier, but those strike me as very, very small differences; late game a few extra levels of fighting/armour/dodging is barely better than placebo.

Of course if you specifically want to train your skills badly - get level 9 spells, huge weapons, train stuff past 20, etc. - you can do that with Hu a lot better than you can do it with Gn. But I doubt that's anyone's reason for playing Gn...

I could be wrong about all of this, though.

[Magipi]

you're chasing the same goals: get a weapon to mindelay or near mindelay, or get some spells castable.

Getting a great mace or a great sword to mindelay (at skill 20) is pretty much impossible with a gnoll. It is probably easier to learn a lvl 9 spell with a human.

[tasonir]

Of course if you specifically want to train your skills badly - get level 9 spells, huge weapons, train stuff past 20, etc. - you can do that with Hu a lot better than you can do it with Gn. But I doubt that's anyone's reason for playing Gn...

I could be wrong about all of this, though.

I think you're right about the concept, but you're underestimating the degree of the difference. It's true that going past level 20 in most skills is a waste, but going up to 20 usually isn't. Gnolls being limited to roughly 14 is a significant nerf. No one needs to take a skill to 27, but being able to reach 20 (for at least 1-2 skills) is still pretty important.

My gnoll ended up dying in Zot, it was largely my fault and due to playing carelessly, but I will say that compared to my usual statue formers, a gnoll in statue form is significantly weaker due to how slow UC is with 14 skill. At least with unarmed that's my strategic choice which I didn't have to make, but also with dodging/armor/fighting skills, there's a real difference between 12 and 20.

My final skills as of zot:2

  Code:

 - Level 12.1 Fighting
 - Level 8.2 Throwing
 - Level 6.1 Armour
 - Level 12.2 Dodging
 + Level 13.8 Shields
 * Level 13.9 Unarmed Combat
 - Level 12.1 Spellcasting
 - Level 3.0 Hexes
 - Level 8.2 Charms
 - Level 8.1 Necromancy
 - Level 7.6 Translocations
 - Level 12.7 Transmutations
 - Level 12.6 Earth Magic
 - Level 12.0 Invocations
 - Level 8.5 Evocations

Normally it'd be pretty easy to have several of those skills at 20 - unarmed, dodging and fighting most likely. I'd have been at least 50 to possibly 100% stronger with those three skills at 20, primarily due to UC delay being an effective haste, but also with more hp and more evasion being a significant durability boost.

All this may be moot with the proposed change to gnolls: +3 to all aptitudes at all times, forever; lock all stats to 5 and prohibit anything from increasing them. Imho that's a terrible system because I'll never, ever want to cast any spells that require spellpower with 5 int, so you're basically locking them out of any sort of conjurations. They'll just be melee with some minor support magic, or pick up crossbows...

[Rast]

Getting a great mace or a great sword to mindelay (at skill 20) is pretty much impossible with a gnoll.

You don't have to get a weapon to min delay to use it.

[tasonir]

Getting a great mace or a great sword to mindelay (at skill 20) is pretty much impossible with a gnoll.

You don't have to get a weapon to min delay to use it.

This is true, but if you're using a great mace at 10 aut delay as a gnoll (14 skill), and a human gets it to 7 aut delay, saying that the human and gnoll have "skilled the same way" or that they are equally powerful is plainly false.

Gnolls are significantly weaker than humans in the late game. They are, of course, better in the early game.

(This is all for the version of gnolls which made it largely impossible to go over 14 skill, and not the stat-limited version).