God: Qazlal Stormbringer


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Snake Sneak

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Post Monday, 9th June 2014, 19:49

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

I tried Qazlal recently with three characters.

The first and the second one were fighter and went quite far, the second dying in Zot 5 with 4 runes. All in all, this god is quite powerfull even if potentially suicidal.

I have just two proposals:

1) The earth gift at 6 stars of piety should give +5 AC not +3. The justification being that grey draconians get +5 AC, while black get rElec, red +rF and white +rC. Thus, making Qazlal give +5 AC whould make it consistent.

2) I am right now playing with an DrWz of Qazlal and until I got a ring of poison resitance I always got the prompt "are you sure?" when casting Mephitic Cloud while being in the area of effect. Since Qazlal protects me from my own clouds, this message should not be there. Furthermore, the message should go away even if I am targeting myself with a Cloud spell.

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Post Monday, 9th June 2014, 20:29

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

qazlal doesnt give you a breath weapon

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Post Monday, 9th June 2014, 20:38

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

I enjoy playing with Qazlal, but I don't like how easy it is to lose access to the later powers by using the earlier powers. It makes me too hesitant to use them. Increase the MP or hunger costs while decreasing the piety cost and I'll be happy. Or add a breath timer or something. I feel like once I develop an ability, I should keep it unless I do something pretty outlandish. Blasting a Hydra three times is not outlandish.

I like to view piety as a kind of experience instead of a kind of consumable. I might just be broken.

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Post Monday, 9th June 2014, 20:45

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

The AC+3 is actually more consistent. Protection brand on armour (only possible for shields) is +3 AC. Maybe you could argue that it should be +5 since that's what the protection brand gives on a weapon, but to that I would reply that the protection brand should probably always give 3AC regardless of weapon or shield.

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Post Monday, 9th June 2014, 20:51

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

WalkerBoh wrote:The AC+3 is actually more consistent. Protection brand on armour (only possible for shields) is +3 AC. Maybe you could argue that it should be +5 since that's what the protection brand gives on a weapon, but to that I would reply that the protection brand should probably always give 3AC regardless of weapon or shield.


Well the argument came from the resistances that draconians get, not from the brand. I honestly don't see how +3AC can compete with +rF, +rC or rElec, unless one is a Gargoyle with the hat of the alchemist, but anyway...

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Post Monday, 9th June 2014, 20:54

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

One more suggestion: I think that, just like Kiku, Qazlal's 6 star gift should include the alternate possibility of gifting the Book of Clouds. This would make that god more appealing to spellcasters. Alternatively, instead of a full book, one spell from the book of clouds could be gifted the same way that Vehumet gives spells.

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Post Monday, 9th June 2014, 20:58

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

Right but Qazlal is not turning you into a draconian (as duvessa hinted at), he is giving you a defensive brand. So making it consistent with pre-existing defensive brands makes more sense.

Edit: Though I agree that the AC is underwhelming unless you already have the other resists covered.

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Post Monday, 9th June 2014, 21:21

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

I usually wear buckler of protection over buckler of rF/rC so I don't think I'd be that unlikely to take AC+3 from Qazlal

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Post Monday, 9th June 2014, 22:22

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

On the Qazlal guy I won with, I went with AC+3 as well. I don't think the +AC option needs a buff.

Also since Qazlal gives you a "storm shield" that buffs SH, it kind of intuitively made sense to me that the AC option gives +3 (same as protection brand on a shield). Maybe that's just me, though.

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Post Monday, 9th June 2014, 23:13

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

Velikolepni wrote:One more suggestion: I think that, just like Kiku, Qazlal's 6 star gift should include the alternate possibility of gifting the Book of Clouds. This would make that god more appealing to spellcasters. Alternatively, instead of a full book, one spell from the book of clouds could be gifted the same way that Vehumet gives spells.


Great idea. He's kinda not too exciting for spell casters currently as he creates such a lot of noise, and this might be a semi-useful guaranteed item to offset that. Admittedly it's not as good as the Necronomicon, but it does allow you to at least KNOW you're going to get those spells during a play through.
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Post Monday, 9th June 2014, 23:53

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

Making one god more like another god generally isn't a good idea, unless the likeness is there to circumvent similar problems that arise from two different gods (e.g., inter-floor recall on both yred and beogh is good because it is convenient and reduces micromanagement and tedium).

Aside from that it also seems weird that Qazlal would suddenly, at max piety, do something he doesn't do at any other point (gift spells). His current gift options at max piety are thematic, have some precedent (he already gives passive short-duration protection against last element you are hit with), and unique compared to what other gods offer.

Also I'm not sure how Qazlal is specifically unappealing to spell casters. The noisiness is a noticeable/significant increase in danger for all characters; at least folks casting magic usually have more ways to take on multiple dudes at once compared to guys who don't do much casting. And when you worship Qazlal you will definitely be put in more situations than usual in which you have to take on more than one enemy at once. Also, many spells are noisy already. The constant loudness of Qazlal is still a danger, but hey, at least you can spam lightning bolt/mephitic cloud/fireball without worrying that it is attracting much more attention than what your god is already doing passively.

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Post Tuesday, 10th June 2014, 00:09

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

and into wrote:Making one god more like another god generally isn't a good idea, unless the likeness is there to circumvent similar problems that arise from two different gods (e.g., inter-floor recall on both yred and beogh is good because it is convenient and reduces micromanagement and tedium).

Aside from that it also seems weird that Qazlal would suddenly, at max piety, do something he doesn't do at any other point (gift spells). His current gift options at max piety are thematic, has some precedent (he already gives passive short-duration protection against last element you are hit with), and unique.

Also I'm not sure how Qazlal is specifically unappealing to spell casters. The noisiness is a noticeable/significant increase in danger for all characters; at least folks casting magic usually have more ways to take on multiple dudes at once compared to guys who don't do much casting. And when you worship Qazlal you will definitely be put in more situations than usual in which you have to take on more than one enemy at once. Also, many spells are noisy already. The constant loudness of Qazlal is still a danger, but hey, at least you can spam lightning bolt/mephitic cloud/fireball without worrying that it is attracting much more attention than what your god is already doing passively.


There's also the fact that Qazlal makes you immune to any clouds you generate, including those from Conjure Flame or Freezing Cloud. Quite the tactical advantage, being able to stand in your own freezing clouds with total impunity.
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Post Wednesday, 11th June 2014, 17:22

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

This god is pretty fun, and the clouds are useful, but there's no way you can hit anything with Disaster Area.

First, it hits far from you, so you have to use it in a preventive way.

Second, it hits in roughly four randomly placed areas, so even if you have two or three large groups coming for you, it might fail ENTIRELY.

Fail entirely.

After invo failure rate, MP and piety cost, etc, it might turn out to NOTHING - except some lava tiles.

Disaster Area sounds good on paper but when the time comes to use it, it'll let you down.
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Post Wednesday, 11th June 2014, 18:24

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

From my limited experience, it seemed like Disaster Area was somewhat useful in closed space (I nuked Spider:5 room with it and I think some room in Vaults), though I'm not sure if you can blow yourself up this way.
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Post Wednesday, 11th June 2014, 18:37

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

Sar wrote:From my limited experience, it seemed like Disaster Area was somewhat useful in closed space (I nuked Spider:5 room with it and I think some room in Vaults), though I'm not sure if you can blow yourself up this way.


This is very relevant to my interests.

At what invo skill precisely?
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Post Wednesday, 11th June 2014, 18:42

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

Seems like I had 17 Invo by Lair: 8 (LOrc aptitudes) and kept it for most of the game.

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Post Wednesday, 11th June 2014, 18:43

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

So I've played a lot of Qazlal recently and although I do love him, he has a rather overly exploitable power which I definitely think needs sorting out.

The storm clouds you randomly generate can be used to kite to death anything. Absolutely anything without a ranged attack can be completely killed just by wandering around. Even at low level, with enough patience you can kill anything without any problem. I offed an orc warlord by just wandering around with him behind me - same with an OOD etin. As it's random elements, it also means that eventually anything will die to it eventually.

Admittedly, by the time you get up to really strong/frequent storm clouds you'll normally be post lair where there aren't many things that you need/want to kite, but with an amulet of faith you can get it pretty early, and anything you're a bit worried about (or if you end up on low health) you can just kite about.

Don't get me wrong, I love Qazlal and he's my favorite recent god, but this is kinda a bit too open to abuse.

Edit: It's never good to criticize without a suggestion, but I don't really know what to suggest. I love passive abilities, and think this one fits incredibly well. Possibly making it so that if you attack a monster whilst it has a cloud on it, it does the elemental damage on top? It wouldn't be as good (although could be buffed to account for this) but it'd stop kiting. I'd prefer that than turning it into an active.
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Post Wednesday, 11th June 2014, 18:58

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

Bim wrote:I offed an orc warlord by just wandering around with him behind me - same with an OOD etin. As it's random elements, it also means that eventually anything will die to it eventually.

...

Edit: It's never good to criticize without a suggestion, but I don't really know what to suggest. I love passive abilities, and think this one fits incredibly well. Possibly making it so that if you attack a monster whilst it has a cloud on it, it does the elemental damage on top? It wouldn't be as good (although could be buffed to account for this) but it'd stop kiting. I'd prefer that than turning it into an active.


I'd suggest

1) an alteration to the AI controlling intelligent monsters for self-preservation tactics / to keep their distance against Quazlal worshipers; create a guard mentality; stand your ground and use ranged, less chance of pursuit, more likely to return to guard duty
and
2) an increase to the cloud timeout and/or severity based on distance from the player position, if not already done.
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Post Wednesday, 11th June 2014, 19:13

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

XuaXua wrote:
Bim wrote:I offed an orc warlord by just wandering around with him behind me - same with an OOD etin. As it's random elements, it also means that eventually anything will die to it eventually.

...

Edit: It's never good to criticize without a suggestion, but I don't really know what to suggest. I love passive abilities, and think this one fits incredibly well. Possibly making it so that if you attack a monster whilst it has a cloud on it, it does the elemental damage on top? It wouldn't be as good (although could be buffed to account for this) but it'd stop kiting. I'd prefer that than turning it into an active.


I'd suggest

1) an alteration to the AI controlling intelligent monsters for self-preservation tactics / to keep their distance against Quazlal worshipers; create a guard mentality; stand your ground and use ranged, less chance of pursuit, more likely to return to guard duty
and
2) an increase to the cloud timeout and/or severity based on distance from the player position, if not already done.


The first one would be good, although it may end up with some hinky situations where you just don't get approached by monsters/other weird behavior, and it'd leave you with basically a permanent conjure flame around you which would make escape incredibly easy. Also, a lot of monsters don't have any ranged to speak of and Q's intrinsic repel missiles would make even those attacks weaker.

I'm not sure what you mean by the second one, can you explain?
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Post Wednesday, 11th June 2014, 20:32

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

Bim wrote:The first one would be good, although it may end up with some hinky situations where you just don't get approached by monsters/other weird behavior, and it'd leave you with basically a permanent conjure flame around you which would make escape incredibly easy. Also, a lot of monsters don't have any ranged to speak of and Q's intrinsic repel missiles would make even those attacks weaker.


Pair guards with support monsters; minor wands; give them more (or a preference for) reaching-branded items.

Bim wrote:
XuaXua wrote:2) an increase to the cloud timeout and/or severity based on distance from the player position, if not already done.


I'm not sure what you mean by the second one, can you explain?


I have little experience with Qazlal.
Clouds generally appear adjacent to the player's current position.

I assumed that when you walk away from a generated cloud, the cloud persists.
I also assumed that some clouds generate further than adjacent to the current position.

The further the randomly-generated cloud is from the player's position, the quicker it should disappear.
The further the randomly-generated cloud is from the player's position, the less damaging it should be.

If the player moves away from a cloud that was generated adjacent to him, increase its chance of disappearing and decrease its ability to output damage.

- - -

This won't reduce the ability to kite, only increase the required duration (decrease the effectiveness) of the kiting behavior. This would be implemented IN CONJUNCTION with the AI alteration.
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Post Wednesday, 11th June 2014, 21:09

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

XuaXua wrote:Pair guards with support monsters; minor wands; give them more (or a preference for) reaching-branded items.

I'm not sure how that'd work really, I mean it'd probably up the difficulty significantly for everyone who isn't Qazlal worshipping and I don't think we can fine tune spawning based on god choices (or would want too).

I agree with your suggestion on clouds as currently they might be a bit to strong in general, but any clouds spawning at the tiles next to you means you can still constantly kite. Combining this with repel missiles means that even if you're getting shot at a bit, you can still kite things down to manageable HP in 'battle' situations before turning round and whacking them. I'm really not sure what the best answer is, but it needs to be something to stop it just being an exercise in creative kiting.
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Post Wednesday, 11th June 2014, 23:29

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

The storm clouds you randomly generate can be used to kite to death anything. Absolutely anything without a ranged attack can be completely killed just by wandering around. Even at low level, with enough patience you can kill anything without any problem. I offed an orc warlord by just wandering around with him behind me - same with an OOD etin. As it's random elements, it also means that eventually anything will die to it eventually.


What about making clouds (not just Q's, all clouds) do damage only to not-moving targets? It'll nerf freezing cloud, but it's not like it's is too weak. Conjure flame and corpse rot will retain their major uses, and vault-generated clouds are annoying in general.

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Post Wednesday, 11th June 2014, 23:44

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

stickyfingers wrote:
The storm clouds you randomly generate can be used to kite to death anything. Absolutely anything without a ranged attack can be completely killed just by wandering around. Even at low level, with enough patience you can kill anything without any problem. I offed an orc warlord by just wandering around with him behind me - same with an OOD etin. As it's random elements, it also means that eventually anything will die to it eventually.


What about making clouds (not just Q's, all clouds) do damage only to not-moving targets? It'll nerf freezing cloud, but it's not like it's is too weak. Conjure flame and corpse rot will retain their major uses, and vault-generated clouds are annoying in general.


I don't think it makes sense to majorly alter how clouds work in the game just to address a problem with a single god.

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Post Wednesday, 11th June 2014, 23:56

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

How many turns of kiting did this take? And at what point were you able to really do this, and where? Because Qaz cloud generation gets weird with walls (making it harder to dance), I assume you need enough open space to get some clouds. And that means you must've already finished the part of the level when every enemy rains down at you at once because you are the loudest.

Personally, I think normal-speed, non-ranged monsters you'd want to kite through clouds are, in that situation (already explored open space after dealing with most enemies), functionally defeated anyway. This might be more of a problem if you're kiting a whole band of monsters, but then it seems like you'd be creating all kinds of problems for yourself. And of course, since you're taking up a bunch of space by running around, anything unkilled or newly spawned will soon be following because you are a thunderstorm on two/four legs.

Either way, I think a nerf to clouds as a whole is unmerited if the problem is just Qaz's goofy clouds. Maybe create a "wake" in the clouds when you move without taking another action for x turns, or something similar. I'm a fan of the clouds, though, and think that tediously kiting enemies through them is probably its own punishment.

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Post Thursday, 12th June 2014, 00:49

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

archaeo wrote:How many turns of kiting did this take? And at what point were you able to really do this, and where? Because Qaz cloud generation gets weird with walls (making it harder to dance), I assume you need enough open space to get some clouds. And that means you must've already finished the part of the level when every enemy rains down at you at once because you are the loudest.

To be honest, pretty much the whole game after I got them up. Granted, there were many situations where I didn't exactly NEED it (I could have used a heal wounds or something and then taken them out) but pretty much any troll/etin/ogre/ugly things/deathyak/anything melee could be easily softened up or taken out by leading them around a bit on a cleared level or even just through part of the map. It was hardly tedious either, monsters all come to you if you wait on the stairs, which mean they can be brought upstairs in packs, and they do quite a bit of damage, especially if they hit a vulnerable element (as a test, I killed a troll faster than it regened). Wandering stuff around for 100 or so turns is hardly a grind to get a good chunk of damage off - especially if you're a squishy-ish char.

At the very least, it just means a risk free escape from any melee fighters. Yeah they all rush you, but you can bring'em up stairs and kite around before healing, rather than having to deal with them.

The only way I see round it is for clouds ONLY spawn when you're stood still. So they count a turn or so of you stood still (fighting or resting), and then spawn after that. Admittedly it may make you quieter when wandering around, but it'd stop any sort of kiting other than for stuff so slow you don't need clouds.
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Post Thursday, 12th June 2014, 01:26

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

Regarding the walls comment, what if clouds only generate adjacent to you if you have 3 consecutive adjacent open spaces (it would randomly appear in 1-3 of those spaces)? That would prevent generation in tight quarters and move Q. worshipers to use less-confined tactics.
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Post Thursday, 12th June 2014, 14:28

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

Currently characters worshipping Qazlal are immune to their own clouds. What about making the player allies immune as well? Quite often using "elemental force" summons fire elementals that then wonder into my freezing clouds and die immediately. I don't thing that it would be much of a buff.

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Post Thursday, 12th June 2014, 14:35

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

I'd love it if it was also extended to make you immune to your allies's clouds, so when you use elemental force to make fire elementals you can walk through their flame trails (and swap with them etc.)

But agreed about making your allies immune to your clouds, as is, qaz also negates most summon spells, as well as destroying your undead. Which is unfortunate, since otherwise he'd be a decent choice for summoners and necromancers. Having him destroy the elementals you made with his abilities is really annoying though
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Post Friday, 13th June 2014, 19:45

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

I have an interface comment.
I found the clouds to be a little distracting. Usually I do not need to really read the screen to know that there are hostiles in the area. However, now with the clouds ever present, my mind has to pause and verify all of the dungeon features. Is there a way to soften the colors of the friendly clouds? Maybe make them more pastel?

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Post Friday, 13th June 2014, 20:30

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

Tenaya wrote:I have an interface comment.
I found the clouds to be a little distracting. Usually I do not need to really read the screen to know that there are hostiles in the area. However, now with the clouds ever present, my mind has to pause and verify all of the dungeon features. Is there a way to soften the colors of the friendly clouds? Maybe make them more pastel?


Completely agree. The clouds wouldn't harm from being almost invisible (just a light shade on each square) as they are they're a bit jarring, especially once you get them up to full wack.
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Post Friday, 13th June 2014, 20:38

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

Tenaya wrote:I have an interface comment.
I found the clouds to be a little distracting. Usually I do not need to really read the screen to know that there are hostiles in the area. However, now with the clouds ever present, my mind has to pause and verify all of the dungeon features. Is there a way to soften the colors of the friendly clouds? Maybe make them more pastel?


Enter this on Mantis as a bug and see what happens.
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Post Friday, 13th June 2014, 21:48

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

What if: instead of clouds spawning randomly, clouds are generated when a monster hits you (including with ranged attacks), but more than one cloud could spawn each time you get hit depending on piety and/or damage taken.

It could make kiting a bit less easy, as you'd have to stand and fight against melee monsters to get the clouds.

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Post Saturday, 14th June 2014, 14:00

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

Jeremiah wrote:What if: instead of clouds spawning randomly, clouds are generated when a monster hits you (including with ranged attacks), but more than one cloud could spawn each time you get hit depending on piety and/or damage taken.

It could make kiting a bit less easy, as you'd have to stand and fight against melee monsters to get the clouds.


Might be seen to cross over with Dith's smoke, but I think it's a good way of doing it. I would be happy with any sort of arrangement as long as it was passive and stopped kiting!
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Post Monday, 28th July 2014, 21:14

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

Feedback:

I find this god very easy to succeed with using a melee-heavy species.
Clouds and rmsl seem to effectively mitigate any noise-attracted ranged attackers and incoming melee attackers. I think it makes things almost too easy at high piety. I have not needed to use the abilities as much as I'd thought I had do.

Questions:

What drains piety besides abilities?

Do monsters killed by Q-generated clouds increase piety? If so, I don't think they should.
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Post Monday, 28th July 2014, 21:20

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

Do you find Qazlal any easier than say Okawaru, or Trog?

I've played several Qaz games, won a couple, and find him about the same in difficulty level as Oka or Trog.

The games are very very dicey in the early - mid-game (before you become a complete walking tank), and your first 200 moves on each level is one huge adreneline rush as you pull half the level to your location. Early trips to the Abyss are near-certain death as well.

Keep in mind that he's already been nerfed as well. The ****** gift has been removed (I think).
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 28th July 2014, 22:18

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

I find it much easier than Trog / Oka, as there are fewer decisions to make. A lot of my level changes have involved a lot of stairdancing, and I think Qazlal draws that sort of tactic innately. I find I'm stairdancing a lot more often than I have in the past. I also feel that I sit at full piety for long times.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 28th July 2014, 23:37

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

if you don't spend a lot of time being careful about possibly encountering out-of-los monsters (most crawl players probably barely even think about how out-of-los monsters will move) then Q will seem comparatively much more powerful than if you do spend time controlling out-of-los monster movement.

Personally I don't even think Q is all that strong (well, his abilities and the clouds are strong, but the drawback is absolutely enormous), but he specifically ruins my control over where and when I encounter monsters which is a big part of how I win crawl. To me this is actually more disruptive than chei's slow movement, though I suspect most players won't agree with that.

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Crypt Cleanser

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Post Tuesday, 29th July 2014, 02:00

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

Initially I thought a noise drawback would be interesting but the novelty quickly wore off because clearing the whole floor while standing on the stairs is boring. I don't think that having noise as a drawback is a good thing. It should be a different drawback.

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Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Tuesday, 29th July 2014, 02:12

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

also, trying to rest near plants is hell.
my posts are to be read in a mildly playful tone, with a deep, sexy voice.

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Swamp Slogger

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Post Tuesday, 29th July 2014, 02:59

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

I think Qaz is good, but not as good as Trog. Possibly on par with Oka, or a bit better. I didn't find the noise to be much of a drawback. Sure, stuff comes running at you. But I'd rather draw stuff towards me than have to go towards them. Elf 3, for example, is much easier this way. In a couple areas, having all that noise can be dangerous (Vault 5). But overall, I found it to be more useful than detrimental on a heavy armor meleer.

Haven't tried using Qaz with a caster or a stabber. See no reason to.

Slime Squisher

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Post Tuesday, 29th July 2014, 08:14

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

Blink wrote:I think Qaz is good, but not as good as Trog. Possibly on par with Oka, or a bit better. I didn't find the noise to be much of a drawback. Sure, stuff comes running at you. But I'd rather draw stuff towards me than have to go towards them. Elf 3, for example, is much easier this way. In a couple areas, having all that noise can be dangerous (Vault 5). But overall, I found it to be more useful than detrimental on a heavy armor meleer.

Haven't tried using Qaz with a caster or a stabber. See no reason to.

You can still lure elves by shouting at them from reasonable distance. I cannot see how waking ALL sorcerers and annihilators makes Elf:3 easier, especially when they start to randomly teleport due to traps.

Even if other gods do not give you benefits as good as Qaz, at least they do not make you an endangered species in places like v:5. In general drawing stuff towards you comes with the drawback of poor positioning when enemies ambush you. Fighting countless hordes at choke point is nice... if you actually can handle hordes.

You have mentioned you haven't used Qaz with casters and stabbers. Qazlal usefulness is rather limited to melee oriented characters not caring about noise. That's in my opinion a flaw. I'd like to see more use for each god rather than in archetypes only.

Vaults Vanquisher

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Post Tuesday, 29th July 2014, 15:10

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

Two points on abilities:

Upheaval is pretty good ability but I think the piety cost stifles later piety gain. It could use other means to prevent spamming such as mp, hunger, breath, exhaustion or even reducing range. Has anyone compared damage output compared to Beogh's smite?

Elemental force is very nice with a source of clouds (spells, evokables) slightly more underwhelming without. the elements seem to be fairly short lived (enough for a short battle) is this intentional or is it subject to the summon cap mechanism. Does the scroll of immolation produce friendly clouds? What are other sources of friendly clouds. Should the piety cost be proportional to the number of elements made; so to make uses of this ability without additional cloud support less expensive?

Sorry If I'm asking for obvious answers, I did skim through the thread but I haven't have that much time on my hands recently for a proper read.

Abyss Ambulator

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Post Tuesday, 29th July 2014, 15:16

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

1. If you don't like stairscumming, I have some bad news for you.

2. I agree on his piety cost being really high for his abilities relative to their usefulness, especially given that his clouds are so useful for free.

3. Also agreed with the being immune to ally clouds. As far as allies being immune to your clouds, maybe being in a cloud gives them blindness to balance it better?
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Barkeep

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Post Tuesday, 29th July 2014, 16:45

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

Bart wrote:You have mentioned you haven't used Qaz with casters and stabbers. Qazlal usefulness is rather limited to melee oriented characters not caring about noise. That's in my opinion a flaw. I'd like to see more use for each god rather than in archetypes only.


I agree with your post except for this. Admittedly Qaz would be a poor choice for a dude doing a lot of stabbing—less so than TSO, however—but I think that's okay. Gods should appeal to more than one play style, but realistically, each and every god is not going to appeal to each and every play style or character type.

Casting-oriented characters are fine with Qaz. My online win with Q was with a HEFE or something (iirc). I've tried him out on a few other casters offline, as well as a few melee and ranged Mi/HO types. My gripe (perhaps subjective) is basically the same as Wahaha's; for me, the novelty of playing some weird cross between ZotDef and standard DCSS was fun for a bit, then got old really fast. But others obviously like how it works, and I'm cool with Qaz being part of the pantheon.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Tuesday, 29th July 2014, 17:03

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

My issue, more than the increased stairdancing, was the lack of piety drain, which (for me) could be attributed to a lack of ability use, but might also qualify as Qaz accepting +Piety kills as coming from me when it was a Qaz cloud effect that caused it. And I don't know if this self-sustaining piety generator effect is intentional.
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Tomb Titivator

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Post Tuesday, 29th July 2014, 18:58

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

Qaz is super strong in sprint where piety is plentiful. Ds of Qaz with max invo is a wrecking ball.

Temple Termagant

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Post Tuesday, 29th July 2014, 20:40

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

I just won a run as a DsGl of Qazlal- I think he is my new favorite god.
I found upheaval incredibly useful, despite the piety costs. As I was pumping quite a bit into invocations (10 by lair, 18 by depths, 24 by Zot) I found it taking out most any ranged threats in one or two hits, and softening up any scary melee creatures enough to manfight. This was particularly useful when vaults came around and ironbrand convokers tried to bring allies to bear.
I think the main thing that distinguishes Upheaval from and makes it superior to Major Destruction is that Upheaval never misses. Sure, sometimes you get a bad element, but even then it does some damage. I found relying on Major Destruction as my non-wand ranged option often drained my piety for nothing, as I would miss a target several times before landing a hit.

Unlike most people here, I actually found Disaster Area useful. It didn't see anywhere near the use Upheaval did, but walking down to V:5 and immediately detonating the ironbrand guards was immensely satisfying- and since it left lava everywhere, those attracted to the furor came in (somewhat) manageable streams. While stairdancing did follow, it was no more than usual.

My two problems with Qazlal are thus:
First, he does not play well with summons. I had demonic guardian, but sadly my executioners would often die to the storm overhead. This also applied to the summons granted by Elemental Force. I avoided using the elemental ability more than once for exactly this reason.

Second, the storm does far too much damage far too infrequently at early levels. This made early fights something of a game of chance, hoping the enemy and a storm cloud would miraculously occupy the same space- at which point the enemy quickly ceases to occupy any space save for as chunks in your inventory.

It is a nice change of pace how Qazlal alters the stealth aspects of Crawl- your days of sneaking around are replaced by chaos, running for your life, and creating obscene amounts of mayhem.
All in all, an exceedingly fun god, great for toolboxes, melee fighters, and fire elementalists with an unhealthy love of inner flame.

Swamp Slogger

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Post Wednesday, 30th July 2014, 02:21

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

Bart wrote:You can still lure elves by shouting at them from reasonable distance. I cannot see how waking ALL sorcerers and annihilators makes Elf:3 easier, especially when they start to randomly teleport due to traps.

*shrugs* Shouting never seems to be as effective at drawing them to the killholes. Usually I have to step at least part way into their vault to get their attention with shout, and this puts me in the open, which is what I am trying to avoid. And I've never had much problem with them teleporting due to traps. How many teleport traps do they put in the vaults anyway?

In general drawing stuff towards you comes with the drawback of poor positioning when enemies ambush you.

I've found the opposite to be true. Most pre-made vaults are designed to give you poor positioning. Which is why I want them to come to me where I can make good terrain with a couple sticks and ambush them.

But agreed, V5 with Qaz is harder definitely.

I'd like to see more use for each god rather than in archetypes only.

Me too. But don't we already have gods that are biased? Trog's not so hot if you want to play a FE. And you can do better than Veh if you want to play a meleer. I think Qaz is fun. And optional. So if people don't like what Qaz offers, don't play em.

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Mines Malingerer

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Post Wednesday, 30th July 2014, 09:16

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

As someone else who recently won with Qazlal (MfIE) my impressions were:

  • He doesn't play well with conjurers or other characters that need their entire mana for all fights due to his abilties requiring lots of xp investment in invocation as well as the relatively high mp cost
  • He does have a nice synergy for cloud spell users (freezing cloud for me) with the immunity to own clouds and elemental summons from clouds, though sometimes the storm clouds make the placement of the own clouds difficult
  • I can reinforce that he doesn't play well with summons, my storm killed my own spectral weapon a lot of times, thankfully it didn't share that damage with me
  • I believe his active abilities are useful for all characters who don't use spells/mana to deal damage (so a rather large enough variety of characters) and his passive abilities are useful for everyone (adaptive resist/AC is pretty strong)
  • Elemental force is too unreliable at low to medium invocation skill, I got anything from only 1 to 7 elementals with one cast at the same invo level with plenty of clouds around. Imo the number of elementals from Elemental force should scale directly with invo skill (maybe with a small variability like +-1) and not what I assume to be a chance per cloud in LOS
  • With plenty of cloud casters around friendly cloud identification becomes a problem, also he doesn't protect from clouds of allies (fire elementals, spellforged servitor casting freezing cloud)
  • I cannot confirm that you have to fight an entire level worth of monsters when going downstairs. That's an exaggeration. You DO have to prepare for a fight to secure a safe perimeter around a stair when going down however. After that it's easy to draw smaller groups of monsters.

Vestibule Violator

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Post Wednesday, 30th July 2014, 09:41

Re: God: Qazlal Stormbringer

My only Quazlal game was a while ago and the problem I'm going to talk about didn't actually manifest because I died somewhat early. But making a distinction (any distinction) between friendly and hostile clouds seems bad to me. Just treating all clouds the same seems like a big boost to usability and consistency of mechanics. And I don't think it's problematic at all for the god to help specifically against cloud-using enemies. Also, why would the storm god give a shit about who made the cloud? It just seems silly.

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