0.8 trunk second impressions.

[roguelikedev]

After finally getting a character to the end game, I feel a bit more qualified to talk about the state of the build as a whole; here goes...

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.

[KoboldLord]

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.

I've definitely warmed to the range-1 Sticky Flame. It's situational rather than a single answer to every problem, which is as it should be. It's very nice for dealing with packs of blink frogs or elephants, and to a lesser extent other runners.

Fire Elementalists are unfortunately dreadful without it, though. They have no generally-useful direct attack between L2 Throw Flame and L6 Bolt of Fire, and Conjure Flame is rather context-sensitive defensively.

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.

Pan has next to no monsters that can paralyze you…

I'm not sure why you thought you needed two MR items in previous versions; by the time you're looting Pan you should be pretty magic resistant just by leveling up, and there's not much in Pan that can paralyze or banish you except randomly generated Pan lords that got lucky on their spell roll.

Pretty much anybody who has Blink, a source of teleport control, and the ability to clear the lower Dungeon levels that have Pan portals should be able to stroll through Pan without serious concern.

[roguelikedev]

Pan has next to no monsters that can paralyze you… randomly generated Pan lords that got lucky on their spell roll.

Exactly. Pandemonium lords which do get paralyze cast it at such unreasonably high spellpower that I once lost an "extremely magic resistant" character to chain paralysis from one. A slim chance of instant, arbitrary "ogre next to D:2 stairs" death on a character I've spent 10+ hours on is enough reason for me to wear MR instead of vanity jewelry like slaying / wizardry. A single paralyze is seldom more than a rude shock and a reason to fight the lord with nothing else visible.

Pretty much anybody who has Blink, a source of teleport control, and the ability to clear the lower Dungeon levels that have Pan portals should be able to stroll through Pan without serious concern.

Where angels fear to tread, yes. I agree that Pan is less dangerous on average than even the Tomb, but I'd guess that I've lost as many characters there as in Tomb, Hells, Slime, and Zot combined. (Granted, I've only so much as stepped inside the gates of Zot once since Ziggurats were introduced.) Cerebov once killed a sludge elf of mine with a 102 damage melee attack; I've seen lords hit for over 60 with stone arrow. The hellion island. The list of sudden deaths which Pandemonium can spring on a badass character is quite long.

[smock]

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.

Good thougths!

In my experience, in 0.8 most any build can forget spells without cost. I don't think ?Amnesia are necessary. An alternative would be lose permanently MP when forgetting, perhaps at random; Sif's ability would of course be excepted.

Re chain paralyze: This is a problem with all MR/hexes: they're all or nothing. I'd like to see MR affect duration. That way players would be able to at least plan an escape from a red wasp or nasty Pan Lord. Oh, and paralysis is a frustrating way to die. "Oops, I forgot my =MR, so I'll either be fine or I'm dead" feels worse than "Oops, I forgot my =rF now may have to burn a ?blinking to escape from a fire giant" or whatnot.

[roguelikedev]

I like the MR : duration idea a lot. Don't monsters already use a system similar to this in addition to their failed-to-affect style resistance?

I'd personally not play a version in which forgetting spells cost permanent MP. You may as well assign a permanent HP cost to unwielding weapons-- followers of Trog excepted, of course. (Screw demigods, who plays those?)

[galehar]

In my experience, in 0.8 most any build can forget spells without cost. I don't think ?Amnesia are necessary. An alternative would be lose permanently MP when forgetting, perhaps at random; Sif's ability would of course be excepted.

Why not simply reduce the generation of amnesia scrolls?

[sanka]

I would prefer to remove amnesia scrolls completly, or at least make as rare as acquirement. Forgetting from books are enough for most characters. And make Sif's ability cheap or even free in piety.

That would make Sif stand out much more. Currently if you are lucky and find some nice spellbooks or a good bookshop, it's not very fun following her. She is not weak, but does not change the game enough I think. I do not see why a piety-free Selective amnesia is overpowered. Yes, you can complety change your spells between branches with her - and than what? You still need the skills to cast them. And at least that would be a little different play style, a unique ability.

[smock]

In my experience, in 0.8 most any build can forget spells without cost. I don't think ?Amnesia are necessary. An alternative would be lose permanently MP when forgetting, perhaps at random; Sif's ability would of course be excepted.

Why not simply reduce the generation of amnesia scrolls?

That would work as well.

Another thought: amnesia scrolls are a duplicate of the Sif's ability. I had thought that there was a move to make god powers unique. Of course, gameplay is more important than this goal (if it really is a goal).

[fnwc]

Hmmm... I didn't even know you could forget from books.

[galehar]

Hmmm... I didn't even know you could forget from books.

This feature is a bit hidden. But the new tutorial teaches about it.

[fnwc]

Hmmm... I didn't even know you could forget from books.

This feature is a bit hidden. But the new tutorial teaches about it.

+1 for the new tutorials!

[roguelikedev]

... I don't think ?Amnesia are necessary. ...

Why not simply reduce the generation of amnesia scrolls?

I have so far used one amnesia scroll outside of test-ID, so from my perspective making them rare changes nothing. I'd suggest reducing the rate of duplicate spellbooks, although that is obviously a much larger task.

... make Sif's ability cheap or even free in piety. That would make Sif stand out much more. ... She is not weak, but does not change the game enough I think.

Sif is an extremely powerful and utterly game-changing religion for mummies due to Channel Energy. Invocations raises very quickly, so that by end of Lair one may repeatedly cast the strongest offensive spell available to the exclusion of other combat actions. Channeling quickly plateaus in efficacy versus EXP invested after that, but it only grows in importance as the game progresses; one very big reason is that mummies, lacking !healing, cannot safely use crystal ball of energy in combat for fear of confusion (which "clarity did not prevent last time I checked, although Ashenzari does.) Using "guardian spirit is also much, much safer with Channel available. Try a mummy of Sif Muna with "guardian spirit; it's liberating. Resting becomes less common than trips to and from the stash.

I'm not sure if it jives with the current direction of development for Sif, but I'd love to see a little bit of that gameplay paradigm trickle down to the hungry races. Not even kobolds can make effective use of her Channel, I've tried it.

[galehar]

... I don't think ?Amnesia are necessary. ...

Why not simply reduce the generation of amnesia scrolls?

I have so far used one amnesia scroll outside of test-ID

Why? Getting rid of your low level spells and optimising your spell list is very useful. The fact that you don't use them doesn't make them useless. Most players use them, but few does to the point that they run out. That's why I'm suggesting that reducing the generation rate might make them more relevant.

[evilmike]

In my experience, in 0.8 most any build can forget spells without cost. I don't think ?Amnesia are necessary. An alternative would be lose permanently MP when forgetting, perhaps at random; Sif's ability would of course be excepted.

Why not simply reduce the generation of amnesia scrolls?

I think scrolls of amnesia are fine as they are. While it's true that you usually (though not always) have more than you need, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. It means that you have some choice involved when it comes to forgetting spells, and that you can only forget a finite number before you start needing to destroy spellbooks (which again isn't too bad, but is a more serious limitation). It also means that you can usually forget spells when you want to, but have to at least put a bit of thought into it.

Much of this is up to playstyle, and the type of character you playing. If you don't want to do a lot of spellcasting, or have only a few spells you want to use, you're not going to be forgetting a lot of spells. On the other hand, if you are mainly a caster, you'll be able to memorize a wide variety of spells (and probably will), and will probably want to forget a lot of them if you want to free up space for high level spells (or no longer have a use for some of the lower level ones). For instance, it's conceivable that you would play a crusader without ever wanting to forget one of your starting spells. A fire elementalist on the other hand will always want to forget flame tongue at some point, and probably throw flame too. The former will have a lot of leftover amnesia scrolls; the latter might not, depending on how many generate.

As I recall, the reason for adding scrolls of amneisa wasn't to make forgetting spells harder. The reason was that selective amnesia, as a spell, was bad. Before finding it, you'd be stuck with the spells you memorized, and after finding it you could forget and relearn spells with impunity. The current system of scrolls and book-destroying does a good enough job at replacing selective amnesia, without any of the drawbacks.

As far as I know, no one has really argued (or at least given a strong argument) that forgetting spells should be hard, or that it should be punished in some way (such as by losing max MP). And if there is an argument along those lines, it's an entirely separate issue from scrolls of amnesia. That said, if making spell management more difficult was a goal, reducing the amount of scrolls of amnesia would probably be the right way to do it (although I don't have a problem with the current rate, as I said).

I just don't think this whole thing is really a big problem with crawl (and if it is a problem, it's a very old one).

[roguelikedev]

I have so far used one amnesia scroll outside of test-ID

Why? Getting rid of your low level spells and optimising your spell list is very useful. The fact that you don't use them doesn't make them useless.

I'm certainly not calling them useless, and I don't leave dead weight in my spell list if I can help it; I've always had enough duplicate sources of a spell to burn books rather than ?amnesia. Then again, I never use the vast majority of spells in the game, and if a character of mine is maxed out on spell slots after about character level 5 and before about Vault:8 it's because he's gotten very lucky in terms of book drops. In summary, I speak for 2% of the player base on this subject and am therefore shutting up.

As I recall, the reason for adding scrolls of amneisa wasn't to make forgetting spells harder. The reason was that selective amnesia, as a spell, was bad. ... after finding it you could forget and relearn spells with impunity. ... I just don't think this whole thing is really a big problem with crawl (and if it is a problem, it's a very old one).

I'll admit that the current system results in me spending much less time in my stash, agonizing over how I want to spend those last x spell slots, so I suppose that's an improvement, but I personally still don't see the problem with swapping out spells via Selective Amnesia. I agree that the current system is fine, but was making suggestions from the perspective of turning spell slots into yet another resource subgame.

[smock]

Either spell slot management should be a subgame where the number of times spells can be forgotten is limited or forgetting a spell is costly. Or forgetting a spell should be contless.

Currently it's in the middle. It's an easy game. (Or always has been for me. The rest of Crawl is hard for me.) There's never a real cost, because you never run out of books, let alone scroll of amnesia. So what's the point? The subgame is too easy!

+1 to lowering the generation rate on ?amnesia.