Shoals Surfer
Posts: 311
Joined: Wednesday, 15th August 2012, 07:13
Unloved Spells: Creativity vs Efficiency
Some spells, however, just... aren't being cast by any type of character. When was the last time you memorized Cigotuvi's Degeneration? When was the last time you thought "Oh yes, Passage of Golubria is exactly the spell I've been looking for?"
It's not that these spells are badly conceived. In fact, most of the spells I'm thinking of have interesting, unique mechanics that add a lot of flavor to the game. The problem is simply that, in terms of what else you could do with those turns, spell levels and MP, there is often very little reason to memorize or cast them- especially considering how uncommon they are. By the time they have been located, the player's strategy will not benefit from learning these spells, and an early book with these spells is going to be attractive either because of the lower-level spells available, or the presence of much better spells alongside them. While I'm sure there are other spells that don't get much attention from players good or bad, these seem to be the worst offenders.
Tukima's Dance: At last, the dreadful power of the Hall of Blades is yours to command! If, anyway, you're a character who focuses on hexes, can spend a lot of time wielding and unwielding weapons, and has enough STR, good weapons, and free inventory slots to to put a MiBe to shame. I'm not really sure what character would be attracted to Tukima's at the moment.
How to make it useful- Tukima's Dance would go from a tedious, suboptimal pseudosummon to a nasty debuff(more appropriate to Hexes) if you could target weapons that enemies wielded. It would probably merit a level increase, but would give it a specific tactical usage against weapon-wielders that would distinguish it from other summons, while still maintaining a very Hexy flavor. Also fun would be the ability to target weapons on the ground, perhaps smite-targeted. This would allow the player to utilize the weapons of the dungeon without having to act like a pack mule, while still allowing them to take the pack mule approach if they desired. In particular, targeting enemy/ground weapons would allow the player to animate weaponry without having to molest the (w)ield key.
Metabolic Englaciation While slowing every enemy in sight sounds good in theory, in practice it functions like a resistible sort of Haste. Like Haste, this spell is also level 6. Unlike Haste, it double dips spellschools, and is in competition with a level 6 spell that seeks to simply KILL all enemies in sight: Ozcubu's Refrigeration (and arguably Freezing Cloud as well) and another level 6 that seeks to inflict a much more more debilitating effect that can effect a much greater range of enemies: Mass Confusion.
How to make it useful- The main problem with this spell is that it simply isn't on par with other level 6 spells. I think reducing it to level 5(but still 2-schooled) could make it much more appealing. It's no longer a Mass Ensorcelled Hibernation, and I think any fear of it being overpowered comes from it's old reputation.
How to make it useful- It IS useful, it's just underpowered to the point of uselessness.
Malign Gateway Without a doubt, I think this is conceptually the coolest summoning spell. Tearing open a portal, you fling the foolish samurai- errr, you summon a tough-as-nails chaos branded brute that takes up multiple tiles. However, it is heavily limited by its dependence on dungeon geography, slow arrival time, and solitary nature. So limited, in fact, that it has a hard time fulfilling its intended role in the summoning school. You can't use it as a quick and reliable meatshield like other summons, you can't drown tough opponents in a horde of Tentacles(Not without Summon Horrible Things, anyway) and you can only use it if you plan on hanging out in a wide open area- an arena to which other summons work just as well, and without the long delay and randomized placement.
How to make it useful: A semi-random placement akin to Passage of Golubria and a quicker emergence time for the tentacle would make the choice of "one really buff summon" vs "enough weaker summons to make the enemy die of starvation before they kill them all" a real choice that doesn't always favor the latter. If entering the Malign Gateway had Distortion-Unwield effects, it could also serve as a desperate escape measure, which would add to the Translocations aspect of the spell.
Passage of Golubria This spell essentially functions as a weird combo of a semi-controlled blink and/or a short teleport that rapidly turns into a maze of wormholes. While hilarious, creative, and of decent utility, barring an early randart spellbook, the books that it shows up in have other escape options like Blink, Control Tele, and Swiftness, all of which are considerably more reliable and easier to make use of. Blink is ridiculously good, so I'm not sure why it seems to be both more common than Passage AND easier to utilize effectively. Blinking multiple times casts little MP and is already a decent escape- coupled with ctele from spell or ring, it is an almost guaranteed escape from most unpleasant situations. Poor Golubria, on the other hand, costs twice as much, becomes less and less reliable the more often it is cast, and needs manual movement to activate.
How to make it useful: Honestly, I think this is a case of Passage being in competition with so many other spells . Passage has potential, it just falls by the wayside when compared to other escape options that are cheap and plentiful, and there is no easy answer like "Reduce Passage to level 3" that can solve this. I've experimented with this spell and think it's very cool, it just doesn't seem to ever be found in the morgues of characters, winner or losers.
Polymorph Other The main reason behind this thread, Polymorph Other is, in my opinion, the quintessential example of a massively fun spell that suffers incredibly from the titular problem of "Efficiency." I do not think I am overstepping my bounds when I say that the goal of most Crawl Players is to win, and the game is balanced with this in mind(as it should be!) However, Polymorph Other occupies a very curious space of game design. Randomness and chance are obstacles to the player's goal to winning- if an activity has a 1 in 100 chance of killing you and little chance of a good payoff, that activity should be avoided, because while the Dungeon will still be there 100% of the time, your character has no similar immortality, and as such must avoid gambling their life if they seek to win against the dungeon that will challenge them 1000's of times. Polymorph other is then seen as a "Bad" spell because it is decreasing the safety of predictability that they are striving for. One need only look at the online records of people killed by "Sigmund the Yellow Wasp" to see how Polymorph is no guarantee of improving a situation. Compared to other spells, Polymorph is a gamble stacked against the player. Many other spells I examined have the problem of "being creative, but suboptimal options." Polymorph, however, isn't just suboptimal. Metabolic Englaciation may be an imperfect choice, but it at least reliably attempts to tip the odds in favor of the player- A promise that Polymorph other does not pretend to make. However, using Polymorph IS fun. It is a one-spell microcosm of Crawl, in which you swap one danger for another, but can never truly eliminate danger itself, and nor would you want to. But then the problem returns- it seems that in some cases, the player is being asked to choose between spells that are efficient and reliable and spells that are creative and unusual in their actions. And using what is reliable over and over again is detrimental to the replayability of the game- clearly players don't only care about winning every time, or we wouldn't even have the concept of "Challenge Races."
I guess what I am trying to illustrate with all this is that while everything doesn't have to be of equal utility, I think that there are some (uncommon) features that, for the player to enjoy those features fully, they have to disregard their primary goal of finding that Orb of Zot. And I think there must be a way that a player can both enjoy these features without feeling like they may be sacrificing a win because they went off the beaten path. Tukima's Dance and Polymorph don't have to become gamewinning strategies, but it would be nice if unpopular spells like this could be tweaked so that they aren't resigned to going "Hohoho, look at my cuh-razy spell list, guys!" and better players shaking their heads in pity and thinking "That's not a spellcaster, that's a disgrace!" This can be avoided if we open up a few more avenues through which the dungeon can be challenged- after all, the game should be about the journey, not final (<) command, and what we all want is more meaningfully different paths on that journey.
Oh yeah, I forgot something when I went off on my tangent.
How to Make it Useful: You can't, because Polymorph Other is still the greatest spell in the game.