Singing sword + song of slaying

[siprus]

I think Singing sword and Song of slaying should combo with each other. Slightly increased scream damage, Screaming starting to happen if song of slaying is itself already causing ton of noise and slightly increased slaying bonus. Also some flavor message saying "Singing sword is happy to sing alongside with it's owner"

[reaver]

"Combos" like this are massive violations of good game design in general and Crawl philosophy in particular. A flavor message would be fine but a mechanical interaction would be awful.

[pubby]

"Combos" like this are massive violations of good game design in general and Crawl philosophy in particular. A flavor message would be fine but a mechanical interaction would be awful.

I don't necessarily think the singing sword needs this effect, but how would it be a "massive violation of good game design"?

[reaver]

"Combos" like this are massive violations of good game design in general and Crawl philosophy in particular. A flavor message would be fine but a mechanical interaction would be awful.

I don't necessarily think the singing sword needs this effect, but how would it be a "massive violation of good game design"?

"massive violation of good game design" is probably a bit of an overstatement. My biggest complaints are that it is inelegant (uses a complicated and unexpected rule for a minor effect) and spoilery (I guess you could put into the Singing Sword description). It doesn't have an active negative effect on the rest of the game like the infamous badforum gardening suggestion, but it's just useless.

[and into]

"Combos" like this are massive violations of good game design in general and Crawl philosophy in particular. A flavor message would be fine but a mechanical interaction would be awful.

I don't necessarily think the singing sword needs this effect, but how would it be a "massive violation of good game design"?

In this case I don't know if it would be "massive," but Crawl avoids "combos" like this, and for good reason.

Things interact or do not interact well based on their stated effects, not hidden synergies. Even if the interaction were stated in Singing Sword's description (so as to avoid spoilery-ness), the proposal would basically have a purely thematic relationship being translated into a game play relationship. It was like when (for a brief period of time in Trunk at some point) felids were not allowed to cast Summon Canine Familiar. (Because cats and dogs don't get along—get it?) It may not seem like a big deal, but because development is an ongoing process, any of these little quirks that are implemented would accumulate over time. (And so this is an instance where "slippery slope" is a legitimate, not fallacious, concern.) Reaver is right; I think it is necessary that Crawl design philosophy takes a hard line against this sort of thing.

A flavor message is fine—that keeps things at the level of theme. So in this case having the Singing Sword say stuff along the lines, "I SHALL NOT BE UPSTAGED!" or something when the wielder uses Song of Slaying would be cute, and fine if a developer wants to put it in. But it shouldn't actually affect game play.

[siprus]

Maybe just sync voice level of singing sword and song of slaying (so when sound level of slaying would be same as screaming for the sword, screaming sword is activated despite tension level). Would it still be too comboish?

Anyway flavor message would be really nice, though.

[TeshiAlair]

Although I agree with the sentiment of avoiding combos for game design reasons, well thought out combos can be very satisfying (ignite poison + poisonous cloud comes to mind).

Aside- Song of Slaying buffing Tukima's Dance would be awesome.

[nagdon]

"Accidental" combos when the natural described effects of the spells work together in interesting ways (like Poisonous Cloud + Ignite Poison, Inner Flame + Enslavement, Petrify+LRD etc.) are great. One good property of the Crawl magic system is that there are lots of spells which are not just X damage to creatures in area Y / summon Z / apply W (de)buff to player/monster, but have interesting side effects which can create combos.

"Forced" combos when some things are special-cased to work together are bad, as they are spoilery and probably unneccessary (the Singing sword already has a high (number of lines of code)/(number of games when it matters) ratio in my opinion). Giving a unique message when it is funny/interesting is probably a good idea, but adding gameplay effects isn't elegant.

[I want to believe]

"Combos" like this are massive violations of good game design in general and Crawl philosophy in particular. A flavor message would be fine but a mechanical interaction would be awful.

I don't necessarily think the singing sword needs this effect, but how would it be a "massive violation of good game design"?

"massive violation of good game design" is probably a bit of an overstatement. My biggest complaints are that it is inelegant (uses a complicated and unexpected rule for a minor effect) and spoilery (I guess you could put into the Singing Sword description). It doesn't have an active negative effect on the rest of the game like the infamous badforum gardening suggestion, but it's just useless.

...Gardening?

[Sar]

Enjoy, it's a classic.

[tasonir]

If you ask me he's a prophet from the future. In his first post he suggests removing nausea...And poof, nausaea has since been removed. In his first reply to the thread, he says traps and doors is useless, and poof, traps and door skill has been removed! HE IS A WIZARD.

[Brannock]

I'll always support more flavor in Crawl, but not spoilery mechanical interactions like this.

[damiac]

He also proposed removing food. That's probably not too farfetched either.

Oh well, it's not the first time someone was ridiculed in their time, but looked like a genius much later.

[WalkerBoh]

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

[Kate]

Closing since this is way off topic now (and the topic has been addressed: a flavour message might be fine, but not a gameplay effect).