Re: New hosted branch: Ieoh Jian Council. Feedback here!
Posted: Monday, 12th December 2016, 17:35
I won a (sort of) IJC game last week, with a DsGl, though I switched to Usk at the beginning of Vaults to try out the stealing mechanic. (In retrospect, I'd have liked to see how IJC plays in extended.) A few notes:
stealing
My main thought is that the punishment for stealing is WAY too lax. This should be among the most stupidly dangerous things you can do in Crawl. Think of going into a zig before you can really handle it: you're likely to get stuff that wins you the game, but you're also likely to get into a situation that's either unsurvivable or barely so. Stealing one of the divine weapons promises a similar reward; it should come with similar risks. Consider threats on the magnitude of berserk daevas, unavoidable red contamination, torment and/or nasty debuffs in high tension combat, etc. Players are bringing this upon themselves; there is no reason it should feel anything close to fair.
That said, I love both the divine weapons and the ability to steal them. I'd hate to see either go, or for the divine weapons themselves to be nerfed into something less special. However, stealing them should not be a generally good strategy, as it is now. Rather, it should function strategically as a kind of hail-mary pass to salvage a badly under-equipped character (again, like risking a zig early) or more realistically be something you try when you're more interested in fun than winning.
recall weapon
Consider eliminating Recall Weapon's (already meaningless) hunger cost. As SN (helpfully!) explained to me on CBRO, spamming Recall Weapon is critical to the god's playstyle and eliminating the hunger cost would help emphasize that the ability should really be used all the time.
More broadly, I'd also advise reevaluating about Recall Weapon's time and MP costs. 1 MP isn't quite meaningless, since you're using the ability so many times over the course of a fight, but it comes close. It may be a good idea to increase the cost to something more substantial (around 3 to 5 MP, maybe) but make it instant instead of nearly so. 0.1 auts never matters, except in the rare and unpredictable cases when it does, while reducing the time to 0 would again reinforce how the ability is mean to be used.
high piety/pressure points
I think IJC has two problems at high levels: (a) there are not enough ways to spend piety; (b) Pressure Points is not as impactful as it should be, since it's too unreliable to matter much in serious fights. While one person I talked to bemoaned the loss of Steel Butterfly Technique with respect to the first problem, I disagree (and agree with all of SN's reasons for cutting it). As a solution to both problems, however, I suggest adding an activated ability that temporarily increases the player's chance to hit pressure points, with a duration and/or magnitude that scales with Invocations.
This ability could come online at 5 or 6*, replacing Afterimage in the former case. If an increased chance to paralyze is too strong, the ability could only apply to slowness.
overall
In my first post on the thread I said that IJC feels to me like a more advanced Okawaru. To expand on that a bit more: like Oka, IJC is a combat god that functions by enhancing the player's existing weapon skills and improving the player's equipment, both directly via the summoned weapons and indirectly via the crosstraining. (Being able to immediately used the strongest weapon you've come across, regardless of category, is a major advantage in early-to-mid game and is indeed key to the god's effectiveness--in what is to my mind a really elegant way--before its main abilities come online at 3/4*.) The main difference is that the IJC requires a much more tactical and involved playstyle, underscored by the fact that Project Weapon is probably less effective as a panic button than Heroism + Finesse. On the whole I think the god's power level is about on par with Usk or Hep.
Finally, I'd like to stress that I had a great time with the god and would encourage anyone who hasn't tried it yet to do so.
stealing
My main thought is that the punishment for stealing is WAY too lax. This should be among the most stupidly dangerous things you can do in Crawl. Think of going into a zig before you can really handle it: you're likely to get stuff that wins you the game, but you're also likely to get into a situation that's either unsurvivable or barely so. Stealing one of the divine weapons promises a similar reward; it should come with similar risks. Consider threats on the magnitude of berserk daevas, unavoidable red contamination, torment and/or nasty debuffs in high tension combat, etc. Players are bringing this upon themselves; there is no reason it should feel anything close to fair.
That said, I love both the divine weapons and the ability to steal them. I'd hate to see either go, or for the divine weapons themselves to be nerfed into something less special. However, stealing them should not be a generally good strategy, as it is now. Rather, it should function strategically as a kind of hail-mary pass to salvage a badly under-equipped character (again, like risking a zig early) or more realistically be something you try when you're more interested in fun than winning.
recall weapon
Consider eliminating Recall Weapon's (already meaningless) hunger cost. As SN (helpfully!) explained to me on CBRO, spamming Recall Weapon is critical to the god's playstyle and eliminating the hunger cost would help emphasize that the ability should really be used all the time.
More broadly, I'd also advise reevaluating about Recall Weapon's time and MP costs. 1 MP isn't quite meaningless, since you're using the ability so many times over the course of a fight, but it comes close. It may be a good idea to increase the cost to something more substantial (around 3 to 5 MP, maybe) but make it instant instead of nearly so. 0.1 auts never matters, except in the rare and unpredictable cases when it does, while reducing the time to 0 would again reinforce how the ability is mean to be used.
high piety/pressure points
I think IJC has two problems at high levels: (a) there are not enough ways to spend piety; (b) Pressure Points is not as impactful as it should be, since it's too unreliable to matter much in serious fights. While one person I talked to bemoaned the loss of Steel Butterfly Technique with respect to the first problem, I disagree (and agree with all of SN's reasons for cutting it). As a solution to both problems, however, I suggest adding an activated ability that temporarily increases the player's chance to hit pressure points, with a duration and/or magnitude that scales with Invocations.
This ability could come online at 5 or 6*, replacing Afterimage in the former case. If an increased chance to paralyze is too strong, the ability could only apply to slowness.
overall
In my first post on the thread I said that IJC feels to me like a more advanced Okawaru. To expand on that a bit more: like Oka, IJC is a combat god that functions by enhancing the player's existing weapon skills and improving the player's equipment, both directly via the summoned weapons and indirectly via the crosstraining. (Being able to immediately used the strongest weapon you've come across, regardless of category, is a major advantage in early-to-mid game and is indeed key to the god's effectiveness--in what is to my mind a really elegant way--before its main abilities come online at 3/4*.) The main difference is that the IJC requires a much more tactical and involved playstyle, underscored by the fact that Project Weapon is probably less effective as a panic button than Heroism + Finesse. On the whole I think the god's power level is about on par with Usk or Hep.
Finally, I'd like to stress that I had a great time with the god and would encourage anyone who hasn't tried it yet to do so.