Paralysation 2

[crate]

Hell effects not being stochastic is actually a problem with hell effects that has come up in the past (as in, they actually should be stochastic), not a feature that makes hell effect paralysis acceptable.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

well then hell effects are another example of me assessing effect and assuming it is the intended design. derpy thing to do with respect to Crawl?? I can learn!

KoboldLord, if the Hell Effect takes a long time to deal with, may as well wait until the next one. You had Summon Horrible Things, and earth magic projectiles, to have some cover and for the fight to go quickly. I suppose the extension of sympathy is mutual. Both types of paralysis are unproblematic from particular viewpoints - that is, if one is willing to overlook certain possible frustrations. Not having to put up with them would be better of course. For example, I don't think I'd mind lurking-horror-style kamikadze paralyzers.

If the ogre mage or orc sorcerer is alone and decides to paralyze me, I'm usually better off than if that monster had just tried to cast a direct damage spell.

Really? I mean, most paralyzers have fine means of dishing out damage, and in particular, ways that check EV... e: I haven't seen claims that e.g. it is better to be slowed/confused by an early orc wizard than to be blasted by it.

[ydeve]

You misinterpret my suggestion on how to deal with paralysers. You don't maintain distance from paralysers, you find terrain where if you get paralyzed you don't get hit by tons of enemies at once. You maintain distance from the mobs when paralysers can hit you.

Paralysis tanking EV is tangential to the point of paralysis. The point of paralysis is that you can't take actions. Anything else it does isn't about the point anymore. It should be on another mechanic if it is to exist at all. I don't know how you can't see how the mechanic of not being able to take actions is unrelated to the mechanic of losing all EV (but not AC) unless you're looking at it from a flavor standpoint.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

It's not as if there was a conference where someone gave a presentation, proposing to implement a spell called "paralysis", and spelled out the point of paralysis, and I waywardly said "no that's not the point". Paralysis is a real and old mechanic within the game, with specific features, and I can judge it on the basis of what it actually does. I don't have access to behind-the-scenes of how it was conceptualized, so excuse me if I'm not discussing a nebulous feature with some similarities. Same goes for Hell Effects - I assumed you're supposed to adjust to their semi-regular timing.

If I see people praising paralysis for its lethality, and EV reduction is a major contributor to that lethality, then I can logically deduce the role of EV reduction in paralysis. If you think that EV reduction has no place being part of Paralysis, you should be especially adamant about removing it, since it's an important element as of now, and making it a pure deactivation effect instead. By the way, isn't the existence of paralysis a major reason why spriggans and felids have a high MR aptitude, since they have low HP and tend to rely on EV for defense, which would make paralysis exceedingly nasty for them?

[ydeve]

You're the only person I see who is focused on the EV negation as important to the point of paralysis. You don't think that means something?

[HardboiledGargoyle]

OK, let's remove EV/SH negation from paralysis, and begin a new era. Track how often people die while paralyzed, and compare the new rates to the rate from the period when stasis was removed but paralysis still tanked your EV/SH. Paralysis deaths aren't extremely common, but at least one of us should be surprised by the results.

[crate]

The point of removing the EV/SH reduction is because it means paralysis is either too good against EV/SH characters or too weak against AC characters (I make no claim about which is true), and you can't fix this unless you make it not kill EV/SH (or, alternatively, make it kill AC also).

Paralysis on its own is a good effect, so no need to make it act as an anti-EV effect also.

This is not motivated by the actual strength of the current paralysis effect.

Making it not reduce EV will quite obviously make the effect significantly weaker against a lot of characters. If this makes it too weak, you adjust by changing the duration.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

Longer paralysis sounds like it would be the bane of low defense characters like ogres, and renders moot the argument that paralysis is weak when coming from the edge of LOS.

You still have the fact that monsters with paralyze tend to come alone or have better damage output than whatever is accompanying them, which qualifies them as nasty despite the presence or absence of other monsters. If you really want positioning w/r/t other monsters to determine just how dangerous paralysis is, you need to have the paralyzer avoid directly hurting the player while the player is paralyzed. Flavor it as having to focus on the sustaining the enchantment. But then you expose how silly most sources of paralysis are as-apparently-intended. If you think that's okay, and if you want them to still be dangerous even 1v1, then rather than letting them attack while paralyzing, it would be much better to give them a high-damage disintegrate, or a spell like Dispel Undead that works on the living, because it is easier to balance (you specify just how dangerous you want it to be, and it even ignores defenses!) and rules out ridiculous and unfun damage spikes like getting paralyzed for 7 turns while the paralyzer unleashes its worst attacks.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

It would have been just as valid for you guys to say that paralysis is all about giving the paralyzer several guaranteed hits, and that paralysis is unfortunately unbalanced and too strong in situations where there are other monsters around. It's important to see what is there, and not to imbue what we imagine to be the thing's purpose as an innate characteristic. We see paralysis punishes two things especially: getting paralyzed with many hostile monsters around, and relying on your EV for defense. You can argue that one of these is more interesting in its mechanics than the other, but that is different from claiming that it's the whole point.

[ydeve]

But it's not true that it's all about giving the caster free hits. Giant eyeballs have existed since the beginning of the game and they can't directly hurt the player.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

It makes sense to give an extremely dangerous ability to an early monster that cannot actually exploit it. The first time you get paralyzed by a giant eyeball is scary because you still see what happens to you. "Wow, if only it could also hurt me," you think! Then you run into monsters that can. And you can also say it doesn't fit well as a paralyzing monster, a la crate saying grinder shouldn't have paralyze. Anyway, what are you arguing? The mindset of whoever coded paralysis? That is unknowable and immaterial, but it is indisputable that EV loss is part of what makes paralysis dangerous, and that single monsters can kill players 1v1 thanks solely to having paralysis in their spellset. It honestly seems like you want to argue over nothing.

[ydeve]

I'm arguing that paralysis isn't necessarily supposed to just come with monsters that hit hard.

Anyways, it's clear that you think that paralysis is just another version of LCS, and after this discussion you still don't see how it's otherwise. So any further conversation isn't really possible.

[svendre]

I had a game recently on a vinestalker who had good defenses and was doing fine up to orc. He came out of orc1 before it was fully cleared because there really was no choice as the entrance was totally packed. The guys followed him back up the stairs (trolls, etc. if I recall) and he had no trouble dispatching them. Upon returning, he was paralyzed by a sorcerer who wasn't in LOS or even seen at the time went up the stairs before. Upon returning to the level he was paralyzed for 7 turns and killed.

There was no managing LOS, he was paralyzed before I had time to do anything but go down the stairs. So, basically the only thing tactically I could have done differently was never leave the level ever once I had visited it, or never have entered in the first place (I think he had MR+ or MR++.) We're talking orc1.. and this guy was doing great on everything until this moment. This is pretty much an MR gear check, and this was only orc1.. even if he had more MR, this could have still happened. It was extremely annoying to lose such a promising character this way.

I don't like paralysis, it's cheese.

Why don't we have a new ring called "resist deathray", then add some monsters with deathray, which when hit by it, kills you immediately. That would be so cool, then we won't have to think about what rings to use as much.

[WingedEspeon]

Why don't we have a new ring called "resist deathray", then add some monsters with deathray, which when hit by it, kills you immediately. That would be so cool, then we won't have to think about what rings to use as much.

Nethack actually uses this system... (Although there are 2 ways to resist deathrays and they don't come on rings)