Noise conduct

[Arrhythmia]

It's also really convenient to e.g. be able to get stuff out of vaults using a wand of lightning. I don't think I'd enjoy it if making noise had an additonal penalty beyond being noisy.

What if a hypothetical, preferably not Dith, God liked and/or supported his followers making lots of noise? I don't really have any ideas of what this God would do, but I'd imagine "be loud" would be more interesting as a God conduct than "be quiet".

[nicolae]

It's also really convenient to e.g. be able to get stuff out of vaults using a wand of lightning. I don't think I'd enjoy it if making noise had an additonal penalty beyond being noisy.

What if a hypothetical, preferably not Dith, God liked and/or supported his followers making lots of noise? I don't really have any ideas of what this God would do, but I'd imagine "be loud" would be more interesting as a God conduct than "be quiet".

I thought of a god of noise once, with the conduct of "make lots of it". The powers I thought of, in no particular order: Immunity to silence. Sonic damage like the Singing Sword. Some kind of echolocation (passive mapping (too similar to Ash)). Flood the level with noise, i.e. increasing the level's ambient noise for noise calculations.

[and into]

Also there was this proposal for the god U!ktaska in GDD, by roctavian:

https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=6197

nicolae: I think an echolocation ability could be sufficiently distinct from Ash. E.g., an ability with piety cost that gives perfect mapping of a section of the minimap (smaller area than ?magic mapping, but perfect detail) however at the additional cost of making a very loud noise in your vicinity, plus a less intense but still noticeably loud noise in the area you mapped. You would see exactly what the enemies in that area are, but you'd also wake them up—so you wouldn't know their exact location. And you would see the full lay of the land, plus any items etc.

I suggested this ability to roctavian in PM, actually, in discussing U!ktaska. We talked about U!ktaksa and I recommended taking him in more of a "making noise" direction. Appreciating loud noises is problematic though if you can spam noisy spells and stuff for piety. So I think any noisy god should just make you passively more noisy as its conduct. That's better, and more interesting—assuming this conduct is supported by powerful and appropriate abilities from the god. Kind of like Chei in game play, but not as crippling because being noisy, while bad, is better than slow movement and no haste. And noisiness can scale better over time and not be so damning at early levels, in contrast to Chei where the moment he makes you slower than average speed it is this huge setback without a lot of divine support to help you out.

[nicolae]

Appreciating loud noises is problematic though if you can spam noisy spells and stuff for piety. So I think any noisy god should just make you passively more noisy as its conduct.

I ran into that problem while I was thinking about the god, but I like that passive Chei-esque solution.

[wheals]

It could offer a choice between gifting you the Singing Sword or the shield of the gong at max piety.

[Leafsnail]

Surely it would need to have some kind of Projected Noise.

[nicolae]

Surely it would need to have some kind of Projected Noise.

Projected Noise got removed for a reason, and it seems unlikely that it would come back even as a god power.

[Leafsnail]

Well yeah, it got removed for being absurdly overpowered. But with a more limited range, quieter noise and meaningful cost it could be ok.

[Arrhythmia]

Well yeah, it got removed for being absurdly overpowered. But with a more limited range, quieter noise and meaningful cost it could be ok.

The problem is that except for the times it was crazy, crazy powerful, it was crazy, crazy useless. Because the effects it had were so binary, all those things you listed would only serve to make it more frustrating to exploit, not less exploitable.

[and into]

Sonos Lo, God of Cacophony

(And also could fit the "high risk but powerful" god talked about on GDD recently.)

Upon joining: All silence fields and effects are dispelled.
Upon joining: Passively create loud noise around you, scaling up with piety. While this noise draws enemies' attention, its divine origin imbues it with other powerful characteristics that affect all enemies in LOS.

The ambient noise around you is a double-edged sword. It increases your average noise level, but only up to a certain point; in addition it will sometimes become extremely loud for a period of time (like noisy on steroids). This means you often fight several enemies at once, but all enemies in LOS are affected whenever your "noise aura" grows particularly strong / loud. These effects grow in power with piety.

Tier 1: Chance to momentarily daze enemies in LOS—like a very short-term paralysis. Checks HD (not MR). Certain enemies immune. Begins happening at *----- piety
Tier 2: Overpowers other noises. Applies a spell failure chance (similar to antimagic) to all enemies. Begins happening at ***--- piety.
Tier 3: The wall of sound around you pierces and overpowers even inanimate objects. Random chance to raise allied dancing weapons to fight beside you for a short period of time. Available at *****- piety.

Sonos Lo gets you into trouble, but gives you the strength to deal with it—and a few options that help bail you out, for when you truly get in over your head.


Active abilities

**---- Intensify (piety cost: varies depending on the "tier" of your ambient noise) Momentarily increase the effect of the noise around you, giving boost to all the passive effects listed above.

***--- Sonic Boom (piety cost: moderate) For a split second, you become one with sound. Upon casting you choose a direction (hjklyubn) and blast forward in that direction until you hit a wall or until X squares have been passed. Any enemies in the way are knocked aside and sustain considerable damage, multiplied by your size (small 0.5, normal 1.0, large 2.0). Causes exhaustion. Extremely loud.

****-- Speed of Sound (piety cost: large) Instantaneous teleport. Guaranteed to create an extremely loud noise where you land.

[reaver]

Yes, noise is a little used subsystem of Crawl that could use something that cares about it. My thought was a transmutation which was hurt by loud noises, but I think some of the more extreme ideas could work.

I see two major possibilities here: A god/item/spell/species/whatever which likes noise, and one which hates it. I think the second would work better because it's so easy to create more noise, but both could work.

[roctavian]

I had a few ideas rolling around since I talked with and into, and I definitely want to contribute to this conversation, though I am traveling without a computer for about another month, so here's a few brief thoughts:

1) The god could give bestow shoutitis (of some flavorful form, perhaps not the exact same as the mutation) on the player; piety is gained when these shouts/player-made shouts wake enemies. I personally think "have a high sneak skill, walk up next to enemies and shout them awake using t t" is a desirable thing to have in the game. That's just my sense of taste.

2) Piety could go up as enemies are woken up, period. Piety goes down over time. This is simple, but might not force players to follow the conduct the way we intend.

3) This, I think, is an excellent god to try out volatile piety with, because noise level / the number of awake monsters changes quickly.

4) The main thing loud noise does in Crawl is bring enemies from outside line of sight INTO line of sight. Giving the player and ability to drive certain enemies OUT of line of sight could be useful, so fear could be a useful tool for this god.

5) "Cacophony" was a word I was thinking about a lot, but another one is "harmony." It could be interesting to give players an ability that makes enemies not notice them as easily when in view, to balance out the "calling-enemies-into-view" aspect.

Incidentally, I think the game is starting to oversaturate with short-distance movement powers. A god that gives players a teleport ability isn't something we have yet, though. What would be the ramifications of "loud noise where you teleported FROM" versus "loud noise where you teleport TO"? The former is a little projected-noise-ish, but I don't have the time right this minute to consider if it's too unbalanced.

[1010011010]

Sonos Lo, God of Cacophony

Sounds like it could work well as a god theme, using sound as a penalty and advantage.
There has been a couple of music themed ideas that could be implemented here. Personally I think music is a stronger theme than just noise and has greater range of possibilities.