The Tavern

I don't see the reason that the new gnoll species can't have its attributes boosted by rings or gods. It's currently the worst species in the game by a large margin at the moment but allowing it to join chei or make use of a +5 ring would almost make it playable.

It would certainly make it more fun. I don't see why stat items shouldn't be more valuable for a species with low stats.

Is that the version with +3 Apts and stats fixed at 7? If so, why do you think it's the worst species in the game?

Because you suck horribly at combat with 7 str and dex

And your spells suck with 7 int

It looks like a race meant to learn how the game works, instead of being actually played. In this case, the lesson would be, "how do attributes impact the game, compared to skills?".

The dynamic apt decrease looked more interesting to me, although I haven't actually played any version.

Playing this race seems unbelievably tedious... with proper god choice/use of broken things like allies and evo, the late game still won't be 'hard' as a gnoll, it will take a lot longer.

I feel like an intended goal of gnoll design was "improve the late game which is long and tedious by making it more difficult." But the way to 'improve the late game' is by making it dramatically shorter, which has the side-effect of making late-game difficulty way easier to adjust!

Sorry, probably a misunderstanding. Some people are saying that Gn is bad because it's tedious. Dragging out the endgame isn't great, I agree.

I don't think the species is weak though. Gh book backgrounds start with 10 Int for example, but worse aptitudes, and they are fine to play as EE, Ne or IE. With +3 Apts, Gn are basically fine with any of the magic backgrounds.

Melee backgrounds with 7 Str aren't great, but again that's not hugely lower than Fe, DE or Ko, and Gn start with higher skills and improve faster.

I can see why people don't like a cap on late-game power. Perhaps 7/7/7 could increase throughout the game to something more reasonable. The previous version, with changing apts, could probably be salvaged by making the range smaller. Start with +3 and drop to -2 or something. That way the start gets dialled down a bit and slower weapons, or higher level sells aren't completely shut out.

4Hooves2Appendages wrote:I don't think the species is weak though. Gh book backgrounds start with 10 Int for example, but worse aptitudes, and they are fine to play as EE, Ne or IE. With +3 Apts, Gn are basically fine with any of the magic backgrounds.

Int 10 instead of 7 means you start with robe of archmagi. Gh specifically can be enjoyable as caster because it does not care much about spell hunger (it eats poisonous chunks and is rarely hungry due to chunks special). Actually I played GhIE, I cannot imagine gnoll having comment like

Pretty powerful character, autosave hasn't triggered since XL 18.
Code:
7 orbs of fire

Several of them got to almost dead from Throw Icicle only but then I had to switch to UC for final kill.

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=13926&p=195163#p195163

Note that the character had Int 19, that's 2.7 times more spell power than with Int 7, more than robe of arhcmagi and staff of conjurations combined while having great AC and EV at the same time.

Gn start with higher skills, at character creation both GnIE and GhIE have somewhere around 5 spell power, for hypothetical Throw icicle. Gh gets something like 1 extra spell power on freeze. Gn will catch up with that by about XL 2. Gn will also get to Ice Beast faster I expect. Gh in particular doesn't randomly gain Int.

I would be interested to see an analysis of +1 Int every 3 levels vs better aptitudes.

I don't think aptitudes can compensate Int difference. Gh still can choose Int on every 3rd level-up, that's Int 19 at XL 27.

Code:: 10190 | Lair:1 | Reached XP level 11. HP: 80/85 MP: 1/23 11606 | Lair:2 | Reached skill level 10 in Ice Magic

Assuming I picked +3 Int on levelups, will Gn have Ice 19 when Gh has 10? Otherwise Gh has better spell power even without any +Int items.

amaril wrote:Playing this race seems unbelievably tedious... with proper god choice/use of broken things like allies and evo, the late game still won't be 'hard' as a gnoll, it will take a lot longer.

I feel like an intended goal of gnoll design was "improve the late game which is long and tedious by making it more difficult." But the way to 'improve the late game' is by making it dramatically shorter, which has the side-effect of making late-game difficulty way easier to adjust!

It's especially true when the species cannot have good spell power but is probably the best species for getting middle spells online (Int has very low impact of spell failure while aptitudes is main factor) so it really encourages using "broken" spells like Animate Dead or Shadow Creatures which don't depend on spell power.

Awful species, it took me 5 attempts to break a net.

Code:: You become entangled in the net! A gnoll comes into view. It is wielding a halberd of venom. There is an open door here. You see here a throwing net {!f=f, !d}. You struggle against the net. The adder hisses angrily. 2 gnolls come into view. You struggle against the net. Unknown command. You struggle against the net. The gnoll shouts! The adder bites you. The gnoll hits you from afar with a halberd. Damage: -8%(-4hp) hp: 92%(44hp) Unknown command. You struggle against the net. The adder bites you. You are poisoned. The adder poisons you! The adder barely misses you. The gnoll barely misses you. You struggle against the net. You feel sick. The adder closely misses you. Damage: -2%(-1hp) hp: 90%(43hp) Unknown command. You rip the net and break free!

Previously I got 5 miscasts of Magic Darts in a row despite having spellcasting 3 and conjurations 1.1, also dealt almost no damage with 8 Magic Darts to an orc wizard in robe despite having Conjurations 3 (still just a single pip of spell power). I had Conjure Flame online but just couldn't hurt Ogre, Magic Dart is too weak with Int 7. The weakest species by far indeed.

Real desperation for new content on display with this gnoll stuff.

Sounds like 7/7/7 is too low.

(Edited to use newgnolls keyword per Hellmonk's comment.)

As a datapoint, Sequell says winrate for post-redesign Gnoll is .48% over 2906 games so far.

[19:08] <Mattlistener> !Lg * newgnolls race=Gn / win
[19:08] <Sequell> 14/2906 games for * (newgnolls race=Gn): N=14/2906 (0.48%)

Winrates for all races in "recent" games (which gives a more useful statistical base):

[19:09] <Sequell> 11373/1277169 games for * (recent): 445/19088x Deep Dwarf [2.33%], 243/13844x Halfling [1.76%], 341/19849x Barachi [1.72%], 1849/115397x Minotaur [1.60%], 1128/79651x Gargoyle [1.42%], 401/30732x Naga [1.30%], 718/57154x Hill Orc [1.26%], 278/22890x Centaur [1.21%], 260/22682x Ghoul [1.15%], 443/38966x Troll [1.14%], 546/51116x Vine Stalker [1.07%], 4/390x Frog [1.03%], 107/10927x Gnoll [0.98%],
[19:09] <Sequell> 164/17984x Demigod [0.91%], 367/40938x Merfolk [0.90%], 502/57959x Formicid [0.87%], 234/30524x Ogre [0.77%], 161/21987x Kobold [0.73%], 180/25897x Vampire [0.70%], 196/28400x Tengu [0.69%], 157/22824x Felid [0.69%], 228/35845x Human [0.64%], 128/20502x High Elf [0.62%], 220/37557x Mummy [0.59%], 962/178347x Demonspawn [0.54%], 222/46234x Spriggan [0.48%], 341/71239x Draconian [0.48%], 326/76107x
[19:09] <Sequell> Deep Elf [0.43%], 222/82137x Octopode [0.27%], 0/2x Lava Orc [0.00%]

.48% is right there with Spriggans and Draconians, and above Deep Elves and Octopodes.

(Deleted newgnolls winrate breakdowns by class and god. N is too low.)

That query includes games from before the gnoll redesign. You'd want to use the newgnolls keyword to grab the winrate of the current version of gnolls. My subjective impression is that 7/7/7 gnolls are better than Mu but not very strong and not fun at all.

Hellmonk wrote:That query includes games from before the gnoll redesign. You'd want to use the newgnolls keyword to grab the winrate of the current version of gnolls. My subjective impression is that 7/7/7 gnolls are better than Mu but not very strong and not fun at all.

Thanks, I will rerun and update the post.

Hellmonk wrote:and not fun at all.

DCSS needs a willingness to try genuinely new things. This game has been around too long to get anywhere new by trying different permutations on stats and skills, equipment slot restrictions, and mutations. These directions are already badly over-saturated. You have to introduce fundamentally new mechanics if you want a fresh take on crawl.

watertreatmentRL wrote:This game has been around too long to get anywhere new by trying different permutations on stats and skills, equipment slot restrictions, and mutations. These directions are already badly over-saturated. You have to introduce fundamentally new mechanics if you want a fresh take on crawl.

I agree. Yet I don't see how Gnoll can accomplish that. As far as I understand it does the following things:
1) Permutation on stats
2) Permutations on skills
3) Permutation on mutations. What we currently have is very similar to -Slay, -Wiz, -Spell power, -EV mutations.
4) Increases annoyance of spell hunger. You have +3 skills to go for high level spells but then you cannot spam them unless you find staff of energy. Is it a species for Dragon Call and Necromutation?
So it is still a combination of old strategic ways to change species.

If we want to get something new, we can focus on new tactical effects. For instance, a species which has "anti-searing ray" effect for all actions i.e. if you meleed a monster during last turn, your next melee attack will be weaker if you hit the same monster again. Actually it can make fighting in corridors a very bad idea and will naturally encourage hybridization.
Or a slow species which gets Swiftness after killing a monster so you can use popcorn to retreat from dangerous monsters.
Or a species which gets its line of sight reduced and stealthiness increased after killing a monster so it can become a "sniper" (crossbow) or "ninja" (stabber).
Those shouldn't be gods because combining them with gods allows for much higher variety.

VeryAngryFelid wrote:Awful species, it took me 5 attempts to break a net.

https://github.com/crawl/crawl/commit/d ... 4ef3ab7f7e

MarvinPA wrote:https://github.com/crawl/crawl/commit/d622f133501d2de153cb4222a7e0a54ef3ab7f7e

Am I reading it right that the chance does not depend on strength/size now? That's nice, it looks like I was just unlucky. What is the chance by the way? 1 + random2(4) is compared to what? If it's very low, I might survive by reading teleportation scroll

Do nets have health?

Yep, they have 7 health and you deal 1-4 damage to them each escape attempt.

MarvinPA wrote:Yep, they have 7 health and you deal 1-4 damage to them each escape attempt.

Can it be displayed in game somewhere?
It's amazing how unlucky I was to break the net from 6th attempt.

As alluded to elsewhere, the species may seem weak without being actually so. This is because with low spellpower and low strength, it may take many keypresses to kill the monster. It is similar to attacking a lot of times with a quickblade. It looks like it is taking a long time, but it's just taking a lot of keypresses.

About spell hunger, I suggested earlier giving them intrinsic gourmand, which will take care of most of the annoyance.

Anyway, even if Gnolls are weaker than other races, it doesn't mean much; after all Mummies suck too. What is important is whether the mechanics lead to interesting play.

The previous version felt very strong, because it had a big early game skills boost. This version, with the reduced stats and aptitudes is quite a lot weaker. It's still a good bit stronger than Mu, and beats many non-recommended combos, simply because it is very adaptable. Any book or wearpon works really.

The Tavern

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