Slime Squisher
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Although the central place for design discussion is ##crawl-dev on freenode, some may find it helpful to discuss requests and suggestions here first.
Slime Squisher
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Ziggurat Zagger
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Location: Berlin
Slime Squisher
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Abyss Ambulator
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Ziggurat Zagger
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cerebovssquire wrote:Wielding distortion does not kill anyone. You're killing yourself by making the stupid mistake of unwielding it. Sure, can force the player into certain choices (TSO/Kiku/Lugonu), but one can also look at this from a more positive perspective and say "this makes this game unique" because it adds a strategic choice that is pretty interesting. Furthermore, should still go Okawaru (for instance) and hope I can manage with permafood / find Animate Skeleton? Is that worth the risk of starvation or being stuck with this crappy weapon for a considerable amount of time?
etc.
Ziggurat Zagger
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I dunno if putting something that has the potential to kill a character in the game with no way to know what it is before hand really strategic. If anything it just makes me roll my eyes, unwield it and hope for the best.
with no way to know what it is before
That's an overstatement. If you started an ogre berserker and the first branded mace on the floor of D1 turns out to be distortion, rushing to Kiku for Animate Skeleton is not a viable way to deal with the problem.
It wouldn't hurt to prevent distortion weapons from spawning before, say, D5. They really don't present an interesting choice for an XL1 character. Unwielding immediately is obviously suicidal, so if you're unwilling to intentionally commit suicide to get out of playing an early distortion character you really only have the one choice to dive until you find one of the tiny handful of ways to deal with the problem.
Tangentially related: I've been trying to get an OgAK off the ground recently. Is the eventual GSC of distortion as great as it sounds?
Crypt Cleanser
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Y - the +5,+5 giant spiked club of Yjudewko (weapon) {god gift, distort, rElec MR}
(Okawaru gifted it to you on level 9 of the Dungeon)
It warps and distorts space around it. Unwielding it can cause banishment or
high damage.
It insulates you from electricity.
It increases your resistance to enchantments.
Res.Fire : . . . See Invis. : + Y - +5 giant spiked club of Yjudewko {god gift
Res.Cold : . . . Warding : . . C - +2 robe
Life Prot.: . . . Conserve : . (shield restricted)
Res.Acid. : . . . Res.Corr. : . G - +2 cap
Res.Poison: + Clarity : . (no cloak)
Res.Elec. : + Spirit.Shd : . (gloves unavailable)
Sust.Abil.: . . Stasis : . (boots unavailable)
Res.Mut. : . Ctrl.Telep.: x (no amulet)
Res.Rott. : . Levitation : . t - ring of see invisible
Saprovore : + . . Ctrl.Flight: . k - ring of poison resistance
Slime Squisher
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Vestibule Violator
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Barkeep
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cerebovssquire wrote:Sure, can force the player into certain choices (TSO/Kiku/Lugonu)
Vestibule Violator
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njvack wrote:cerebovssquire wrote:Sure, can force the player into certain choices (TSO/Kiku/Lugonu)
Forgive my denseness, but how does TSO help if you're wielding distortion? Like, get to 6* piety and bless it away?
Abyss Ambulator
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It does have its situational uses, but if you are relying on it for an escape option you probably have bigger issues anyways.
Ziggurat Zagger
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It does have its situational uses, but if you are relying on it for an escape option you probably have bigger issues anyways.
Abyss Ambulator
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Slime Squisher
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Dungeon Master
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Konebred wrote:I wish they made all distortion weapons appear as cursed so scrolls of detect curse are actually useful through more than just the early game.
Blade wrote:Distortion weapons are actually carried around by most players once they're found -- they're a risky but useful escape item that can often save you from near-certain doom in a variety of ways. Because of their unwield effects, they go from being just another brand to a very interesting, tactical item with positives and negatives.
Slime Squisher
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Halls Hopper
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Ziggurat Zagger
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galehar wrote:Anyway, it is a recurrent topic. Honestly, I don't see anything wrong with the current design. When you're stuck with one, you have to adapt you strategy and tactics. If it's blunt, then you have to rely on permafood until you find an alternate way of butchering. If you don't, and run low on food, then you take your chance unwielding.
Ziggurat Zagger
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minmay wrote:Good thing you can just easily win without butchering.
Swamp Slogger
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banei wrote:The lasts 3 times I accidentely wielded distortion, I immediately unwielded and ended up glowing. Those three times, I sure wish I was banished instead.
Dungeon Master
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KoboldLord wrote:I don't think the very rare spawn rate of distortion weapons is particularly effective at preventing people from checking interesting-looking weapons, either.
Blades Runner
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galehar wrote:KoboldLord wrote:I don't think the very rare spawn rate of distortion weapons is particularly effective at preventing people from checking interesting-looking weapons, either.
You misunderstand. The point is certainly not to prevent players from testing interesting looking weapons. It is to prevent them from testing every weapons for brand. It's a typical newbie mistake to check every single piece of potentially branded equipment, even if they are a crap base type for which they have no skill.
Ziggurat Zagger
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KoboldLord wrote:minmay wrote:Good thing you can just easily win without butchering.
As long as we all agree that it's possible to win while following ridiculous conducts, why don't we have the game track them formally so players can choose whether or not to use them, rather than imposing them more-or-less at random when players try to wield the one distortion mace in a pile of five hundred generated over the course of twenty games?
Crypt Cleanser
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Dungeon Master
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smock wrote:Why is it important to prevent newbies from testing every weapon for a brand?
smock wrote:I bet that there are additional and better ways to encourage players to ignore equipment that isn't suitable for them, if this is an important goal.
SchwaWarrior wrote:All in all, if you can one-shot an Iron Golem in one hit with a DAGGER by banishing it, and take the Exp for it, then for me the pros outweigh the cons.
Ziggurat Zagger
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Tartarus Sorceror
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varsovie wrote:Butchering with a weapon of distortion should have a chance of :
blinking the corp/chunk
banish the corp/chunks
make the chunks mutagenic
make the ground to corrupt
make the ground to banish, creating a hole, so you fall in
Anyway I like this brand, when an enemy wield it and then blink you in the middle of a gnoll squad or banish you early.
Shatari wrote:I traded a goat for a Nintendo DS XL, and a ton of games.
Ziggurat Zagger
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galehar wrote:KoboldLord wrote:I don't think the very rare spawn rate of distortion weapons is particularly effective at preventing people from checking interesting-looking weapons, either.
You misunderstand. The point is certainly not to prevent players from testing interesting looking weapons. It is to prevent them from testing every weapons for brand. It's a typical newbie mistake to check every single piece of potentially branded equipment, even if they are a crap base type for which they have no skill.
Vaults Vanquisher
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Blades Runner
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ebarrett wrote:This thread is becoming increasingly ridiculous, you all are making it look like that wielding an unwanted distortion weapon is something that happens often enough to worry about.
Abyss Ambulator
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Vaults Vanquisher
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varsovie wrote:Butchering with a weapon of distortion should have a chance of :
blinking the corp/chunk
banish the corp/chunks
make the chunks mutagenic
make the ground to corrupt
make the ground to banish, creating a hole, so you fall in
Jabberwocky wrote:That seems similar to weapons of venom poisoning corpses you are butchering which is on the will not do list. It just adds tedium.
Blade wrote:it's also very detrimental to new players when they don't run away from sigmund on d:2 and that could discourage them, so I propose a removal of sigmund, effective immediately.
Ziggurat Zagger
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minmay wrote:KoboldLord wrote:Checking potentially-branded weapons is not scumming behavior if you still have your starting weapon.
If it's optimal to wield every glowing/runed weapon - or just every weapon - then they should just be identified at the start, because that would be identical in gameplay except without ungodly tedium attached.
There are already curses to prevent that though, so whatever. And I rather don't like that getting monsters to wield them can be the safest way to identify weapons.
ebarrett wrote:This thread is becoming increasingly ridiculous, you all are making it look like that wielding an unwanted distortion weapon is something that happens often enough to worry about.
minmay wrote:So we should get rid of the cases where they "die because of meleeing a gnoll at XL1" too, right?
Dungeon Dilettante
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Ziggurat Zagger
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Blades Runner
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minmay wrote:So we should get rid of the cases where they "die because of meleeing a gnoll at XL1" too, right?
Dungeon Master
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KoboldLord wrote:Moving distortion weapon spawns to a deeper level, however, would correct a rare but obnoxious problem
Blades Runner
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Ziggurat Zagger
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galehar wrote:KoboldLord wrote:Moving distortion weapon spawns to a deeper level, however, would correct a rare but obnoxious problem
How would that change anything? Unwielding distortion on D:5 isn't any safer than doing it on D:1.
Pandemonium Purger
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it's also very detrimental to new players when they don't run away from sigmund on d:2 and that could discourage them, so I propose a removal of sigmund, effective immediately.
2) Once you've hit D5, you've generated a number of floor spawns which are more likely to contain a way to compensate for distortion. It still won't be guaranteed, but the odds will be better.
Barkeep
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Spider Stomper
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Ziggurat Zagger
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minmay wrote:Well if this wasn't obvious from my previous post I also see no problem at all with occasionally having powerful items on D:1 - I certainly wouldn't want to get rid of D:1 crystal plate armour or D:1 weapons of electrocution. It seems rather silly to have luck as a factor and then make it impossible to get good luck!
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