The Tavern

For now it's apparent that item destruction is going to remain in crawl without major overhauls, but that issue aside, can we discuss the rate that sticky flame burns through scrolls? Many players I spectate and talk to participate in the exciting behavior known as scroll-dropping, where the player tries to minimize the impact of a stray sticky flame. I find this practice boring and tedious, and I think the game would benefit from a change to make it less of a desirable strategy. And in the event a mottled dragon wanders in on a rough fight, you may not have the luxury of such a degenerate tactic and you must watch as everything goes up in smoke.

Let's normalize the destruction rate of sticky flame compared to other sources. This will perhaps not affect player behavior as much as outright removal, but it would be less jarring of an effect on characters without conservation.

I don't want to weigh in on whether or not "more damaging to scrolls" is good or not, but "dropping scrolls stack by stack" when you are on fire is incredibly undesirable.

In all cases, sticky flame should burn up all the scrolls it's going to burn on the first turn.

roctavian wrote:In all cases, sticky flame should burn up all the scrolls it's going to burn on the first turn.

I agree, it should burn zero scrolls as soon as it hits you.

But yeah sticky flame is definitely the worst case of item destruction because it pretty much forces you to play the scroll dropping minigame or lose all your scrolls.

roctavian wrote:I don't want to weigh in on whether or not "more damaging to scrolls" is good or not, but "dropping scrolls stack by stack" when you are on fire is incredibly undesirable.

In all cases, sticky flame should burn up all the scrolls it's going to burn on the first turn.

This would also prevent the tactic of switching to conservation once it hits you, which is the sort of thing devs generally dislike (as you can't cure confusion by switching to clarity after the fact).

I have lost upwards of around 20 scrolls to one Sticky Flame before. Its scroll destruction potency is quite ridiculous. Either drop all your scrolls when seeing any Mottled Dragon, Hell Hog, etc, or lose all your scrolls. This is one reason why I pick up the useless junk scrolls. They act as a flame buffer so I can drop the more useful scrolls before they are all gone.

That's not how it works, each scroll has an independent chance to be destroyed every time you take fire damage, holding junk scrolls doesn't help.

Sticky flame is one of the major reasons why I don't like playing heavy armour characters anymore. That scroll destruction is way, way too much compared to the paltry amount of damage that sticky flame usually deals.

I frequently find myself carrying around phials of floods for the specific purpose of creating water to extinguish sticky flame. You still can't use them every time you get napalmed, though, due to the recharge mechanic.

Goshiro the Blind protects scrolls 100%
Even if he doesn't exist in the Crawl world.

Did you know that if you get hit by sticky flame and you have one scroll (instead of a stack) you are trying to protect, optimal play is to throw it and not to drop it? How cool is that?

Can a wielded scroll catch fire?

mikee wrote:Did you know that if you get hit by sticky flame and you have one scroll (instead of a stack) you are trying to protect, optimal play is to throw it and not to drop it? How cool is that?

Is that referring to ground destruction? I think that was removed (big thanks to whoever removed it).

Maynot wrote:I have lost upwards of around 20 scrolls to one Sticky Flame before. Its scroll destruction potency is quite ridiculous. Either drop all your scrolls when seeing any Mottled Dragon, Hell Hog, etc, or lose all your scrolls. This is one reason why I pick up the useless junk scrolls. They act as a flame buffer so I can drop the more useful scrolls before they are all gone.

How many times have we heard this misconception about itemdest before. It belongs in the "Things in Crawl that are confusing" thread.

Wahaha wrote:Is that referring to ground destruction? I think that was removed (big thanks to whoever removed it).

Scrolls don't get a chance of burning up if you throw them but they can get burnt while being dropped.
Same thing happens with freezing clouds and potions.

Spoiler: show

I still think sticky flame should prevent scroll reading for its duration, instead of destroying them.

duvessa: I agree. Duration could be longer, perhaps, but not necessarily so for a start.

Alternatively, rename sticky flame to Burn Paper.

The description would be:
This spell creates a hot aura around the target. This aura causes much of the paper the target is carrying to burst into flames. The aura also causes minor burns on the target.

That would reflect why players currently hate it at least. Although it makes no sense for a mottled draconian to spit "Burn Paper". So I guess you'd better just do what duvessa said.

duvessa wrote:I still think sticky flame should prevent scroll reading for its duration, instead of destroying them.

Good idea. Although I do wonder if it should also keep an on hit destruction. Well, it's probably not the right place to ask that, anyway

galehar wrote:
duvessa wrote:I still think sticky flame should prevent scroll reading for its duration, instead of destroying them.

Good idea. Although I do wonder if it should also keep an on hit destruction. Well, it's probably not the right place to ask that, anyway

I would go with yes here, if it's just once then it isn't worse than other sources of destruction and that is a tangential problem.

galehar wrote:
duvessa wrote:I still think sticky flame should prevent scroll reading for its duration, instead of destroying them.

Good idea. Although I do wonder if it should also keep an on hit destruction. Well, it's probably not the right place to ask that, anyway

If item destruction is to stay please give sticky flame an one time on-hit destruction like the other fire spells and prevent scroll reading for the time of the status. Currently it's just cruel...

duvessa wrote:I still think sticky flame should prevent scroll reading for its duration, instead of destroying them.

Adapting this pre-existing Lava Orc mechanic would be cool.

The idea predates lava orcs.

duvessa wrote:I still think sticky flame should prevent scroll reading for its duration, instead of destroying them.

I wrote a branch that did something like this. Fire effects gave the Scroll- status and ice gave Potion-. If you tried using the items, it carried a 50% chance of destruction. I don't recall anyone liking it.

brendan wrote:I wrote a branch that did something like this. Fire effects gave the Scroll- status and ice gave Potion-. If you tried using the items, it carried a 50% chance of destruction. I don't recall anyone liking it.

Might be because of the 50% chance. At least I don't like playing 50/50 roulette on item that might be difference of life and death. Like a blink scroll or heal potion.
It's better to lose the item and know you can't rely on it and play accordingly.

So for I like the idea of making scrolls unusable for a while.

@bh: Well I think that was because there is a big difference between current itemdest which does not a whole lot (not to say strictly nothing) to prevent usage of important consumables in situations where you really need them and flat out making every random bit of cold/fire damage that is tossed your way add a coinflip to said important consumables to see if they work; making them go from completely reliable to 50% in most situations was a strict (and undeserved) nerf to consumables and made them a lot less interesting imo, since it encouraged carrying a lot more of them to spam in case of need and retreating in odd ways to get rid of the status and applying the consumable.

As far as I understand it this current proposal would mean no scroll usage whatsoever while sticky flamed, which given the rarity of sticky flame would be an improvement over the current situation.

brendan wrote:
duvessa wrote:I still think sticky flame should prevent scroll reading for its duration, instead of destroying them.

I wrote a branch that did something like this. Fire effects gave the Scroll- status and ice gave Potion-. If you tried using the items, it carried a 50% chance of destruction. I don't recall anyone liking it.

It is galling to spend the game carefully managing my consumables only to lose them in an otherwise trivial fight with an item destroying monster, but like others I don't like the idea of tying my panic buttons to a set of coin tosses.

Here is a modified proposal: Consumable use under Scroll- or Potion- exposes your all scrolls/potions to a destruction test -except- the consumable you used. This way, clutch escape tools have guaranteed availability.

And when I mentioned this a few months ago, nobody listened to me :roll:

Anyway, what I think, is that itemdest is the most annoying thing in the game and even makes me drop my scrolls and potions before fighting early orc wizards... But let's at least fix this obvious player harrasment - sticky flame burning all your precious scrolls while you cry watching it happening.

You did it!

For he's a jolly good fellow....

This is the happiest day of my life.

Only 1/6 of your precious scrolls now you lucky crawlers you

Great. Not it's not super bad, but just very bad.

I noticed that now when you have cons on you tend to rarely lose scrolls to sticky flame, as opposed to constantly as was the case before. That's an improvement in my book.

I like the comparisons. "Being in sticky flame for a turn damages your scrolls as much as falling in lava."

The Tavern

Sticky flame is too good at annihilating scrolls

Sticky flame is too good at annihilating scrolls

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