n1000 wrote:If it's not obvious reread the OP until it is...Okay fine: The tactical advantage offered by digging is dominated by the move outlined in the OP, the intersecting corners. This is extremely bad because it 1) is tedious to execute 2) is entirely one-dimensional 3) mostly ignores generated layouts..
So the problem with this is that it presumes:
1. That it is, in fact, tedious to execute. In actual fact, this requires "press aa, then use movement keys to walk 2-3 steps" Which is in fact less tedious than walking back to a corner in many instances. (And it's no more "one dimensional" than "walk around a corner or into a 1 tile wide hallway")
2. That as a positioning tool, it's sufficiently powerful that it dominates over all other possibilities (i.e. using existing corners) It's *as* powerful as ducking around a corner, but not *more* powerful, therefore choosing one over the other is a matter of which is more convenient (see point 1.)
It does ignore some generated layouts (Although I would argue that this is the whole point of digging in the first place, and in a corresponding situation a non-Formicid would use a dig/disintigration wand, or blink, or haste, or use swiftness, the additional access to digging is just to make up for the lack of other options)
Now having a corner close at hand whenever you need one is a powerful tool, but this isn't an argument about power (We'd have to get into a discussion about whether digging out kill holes is more powerful than all teleport/blink/haste effects, I happen to think power-wise the two balance relatively well)
It's current drawback (Hunger, a little nose, 50% slower movement while digging) isn't sufficient to prevent using dig "whenever it's convenient" If however we want to have it be reserved for "whenever it's REALLY needed" (To say, restrict it to being used as often as you use blink scrolls, as opposed to using at often as you do cBlink or Haste when you have it online and easily castable) You'd have to add further drawbacks or increase the ones that were there, or add "charges" to it (Which refilled "somehow") (Or maybe you could try and balance it towards "You really want to only use dig when you *really* need it"
Of the 'additional drawbacks' I've seen suggested: glow, more noise, more hunger, tempstatloss, and much longer digging time, in nearly all cases (except "significantly more noise in combination with longer digging time") it just involves more 5-ing to wait off the drawback, or more chunk eating (I guess we could do something drastic with hunger like the vampiric brand which does at least put a short-term cap on digging while leaving a long-term unlimitedness)
I think adding charges with a recharge mechanism to digging causes some inherent headaches, if you have limited charges, then you're encouraged to leave challenges alone until you have sufficient charges, then go burn digging holes before you accumulate more charges (Whether the recharge mechanism is exp, exploration or translocation effects) which involves a lot of tedious back and forth travel. If you have unlimited charges then regardless of how the recharging mechanism happens, ultimately you end up with 'unlimited digging' unless you have a limited source of recharging (and with limited recharging you'd have to do a great deal of fiddling to make sure you got "just the right amount" available, Fo's digging is intended to make up for the lack of escape options, screwing a late-game character just because they used to much digging early kinda sucks.)
Finally, I would argue ultimately you get more wands of digging and disintigration charges than you care to use with a non-formicid, and "having more access to digging than you ever need" is equivalent to having "unlimited digging" so the real issue here, is that Fo get access to this at the start of the game instead of "sometime later" which as I said seems to be power-balanced against their inherent stasis, and is no more tedious than walking to a nearby corner.
Sunday, 11th May 2014, 13:55 
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