Halls Hopper
Posts: 61
Joined: Friday, 18th March 2011, 03:16
0.8 trunk second impressions.
The bleeding-edge change from 10 to 25 piety for Ashenzari's respec is a solid step in the right direction. I have worshiped Ash almost exclusively across my 0.8 trunk characters, and respec very frequently, but have never been constrained by piety in doing so-- only by simply not having the skills to give up. I'll withhold further comments until playing the newest build, save for this: perhaps the rate of transfer might be tweaked to depend on current boundedness?
The new Sticky Flame isn't bad, per se, but the new fire elementalist certainly is. I personally always forgot Sticky once Iskenderun's Mystic Blast became available, and the new delivery system for SF definitely makes doing so less of a no-brainer, so thumbs up to that. There are many situations (bees) in which the new SF shines, but <opinion> a low level kenku or dark elf FE should not have to risk instant death against every ogre </opinion>. If this issue has been addressed in a newer build than I am playing, confetti and high fives, if not-- range 2? Fear/confusion effect? Delayed Fireball-esque instant cast? Something, please.
The removal of Selective Amnesia and accompanying additions is interesting-- I particularly love forget via book sacrifice, as long games had no use for 90+ % of the books that spawn. Very elegant. In practical terms, however, this collection of gameplay elements has only punished one of my characters: a DEFE who branched out early and picked up a plethora of spells by the time he reached D:20. No one else has felt the pinch. I understand that this helps cement Sif Muna as the 'generalist caster' diety, and everything may indeed be working completely as intended; the only reason I'm "complaining" is that spell slots seem like a potentially very deep / interesting resource management subgame and they can still be more or less ignored.
Removal of chain paralyze makes the late game much, much less dangerous. Avoiding banishment remains a good reason to bring extremely+ MR to Elven Halls, etc. but once Elf:7 and D:27 are clear, a character may as well throw all her MR items into lava. It is certainly nice to have, but my current character is wearing =wizardry and =slaying, unconcernedly strolling through Pandemonium at quite resistant. In any previous version, I would be wearing two =MR instead and be significantly weaker for it; I do not exaggerate in saying that without the snowballing effect of this single change, my current character would be completely out of his league.
Finally, Ashenzari's gate detection is amazing at all levels. It has already saved at least one character's life, in addition to untold frustration and boredom. As far as I am concerned, this ability has obviated an entire religion (Lugonu.) Obviously, this says more about Lugonu than Ash, and many of the proposed (implemented?) changes to the Abyss would render the entire observation null. This facet of Ash worship elevated her in my eyes from a pre-Hell diety to at least a pre-Ziggurat one (I haven't entered a Ziggurat yet in this version.)
Great job as a whole, dev team. 0.8 final will be the strongest version yet.
- For this message the author roguelikedev has received thanks:
- galehar