Remove Ooze

[TeshiAlair]

Really little FR: Remove oozes

1. Because they are slow, they require no challenge to kill by anyone.
2. Worms exist, and actually can do some damage, making them marginally more interesting.
3. Many early enemies exist as "training" forms of later ones. Fast agile bats, ranged kobolds, pack-traveling gnolls. Worms teach new players a pattern: slow enemies that you don't want to stand next to (Worms, beetles, slugs). Oozes actually are misleading: other J's are regular speed, and their main threat is acid, thus oozes don't represent any form of future threat within the genus.

[tasonir]

Counterpoint: Oozes teach that jellies cannot be constricted by octopodes and .10 nagas. Also, they hit fairly hard for a D:1 monster, when a worm would be considered OOD (although some D:1 vaults place worms). I think, but could also be wrong, that they have faster regeneration?

[and into]

Mod note: Deleted two posts after receiving a report.

Please keep the alt-account accusations/jokes out of GDD. Thanks.

[TeshiAlair]

They don't hit quite hard enough for melee to care, and mages make that mistake for about 2 seconds before they start to kite. Or they are an IE, in which case they 2-shot it. Worms would be slightly OOD on D1, but they show up on D2 sometimes, and by D3 they are pretty solidly in depth.

Also, wow, now I'm almost curious to have read the other posts O_O

[KittenInMyCerealz]

Oozes are cool.

[duvessa]

Oozes are much better monsters than worms.

[reaver]

Oozes are much better monsters than worms.

I'm guessing the reason you think this is oozes are speed 8 and worms are speed 6. Is that correct?

[duvessa]

That's a part of it, but I was thinking more of oozes being less annoying to kill. I'll admit that oozes compete with rat/giant newt for weakest monster in the game (unless you are a naga) but by that logic you should remove rats and giant newts too. And worms are harmless even if you are a naga, so...

[TheDefiniteArticle]

Oozes at least have a chance of being slightly threatening when you are XL1. Worms are free food and nothing else.

[WalkerBoh]

Worms are a good teaching monster for new players.

[duvessa]

for teaching that crawl has bad monsters, maybe

[mikee]

The only thing I could actually remember about oozes is something that probably should be fixed. It's sort of understandable to die to them but for the wrong reasons: ooze hp varies extremely for a d:1 monster (9-24!), so some random oozes will take way more hits to kill.

[dck]

I don't like oozes a whole lot because they only matter sporadically when the player is at his weakest and the threat everything poses is at its highest, in conjunction with other monsters oozes can be interesting; now, many monsters try to pull off this whole "being only passable with other things around" but I think oozes actually kind of make it because of the extreme frailty of D: 1 characters and how accessible D: 1 is.
D: 1 gets a ton of visits, every player gets through it every game and that's a lot of chances for oozes to show up at interesting places. Furthermore D: 1 sees players of all levels of skill and indeed players who play recklessly or mindlessly; oozes teach these players that even non-threatening monsters can be a problem if you don't pay attention to what you're doing and get yourself in a hairy situation with other dangerous monsters around.

All things said, this is not some great concept of a monster and the lesson it teaches isn't really an unique one that a pack of jackals couldn't do better. It's still better than worms, however, since worms introduce the concept of the slug into the game and that really is a terrible thing. Slow enough to never be a threat, hits hard enough that you want to kite it. Terrible things those worms.

[Sprucery]

I don't think that all slow-moving kitable monsters should be removed. The possibility that some other monster pops in while you're kiting the worm/ooze/etc. is interesting. Most of the time they're just free exp, but there has to be some amount of that too.

[Roderic]

Let them ocassionaly split before death and/or ooze through closed doors, iron grates, <insert future dungeon features>

[Lyrick]

<insert future dungeon features>

  Code:

The wall shudders, and an ooze oozes out of the cracks!

[zrn]

Let them ocassionaly split before death

  Code:

The ooze shudders, and an ooze oozes out of the ooze!

[TeshiAlair]

Special case for Slime

  Code:

The ooze shudders, and a wall oozes out of the ooze

[Mulzaro]

I don't think that all slow-moving kitable monsters should be removed. The possibility that some other monster pops in while you're kiting the worm/ooze/etc. is interesting. Most of the time they're just free exp, but there has to be some amount of that too.

They also have a tendency to sometimes be in your way when you are running from other monsters. Like in tunnels for example. That suddenly makes the 'most of the time harmless' creature a pretty dangerous one since they hit hard.

[and into]

The "extremely slow, hard hitting, melee-only, robust" creature type isn't very good for crawl. (Worms, Goliath Beetles, Giant Snails, Elephant Slugs [Gastronok is fine and exempted from this].) If your character just so happens to have a good way to kite them, free xp. If not, you do stuff like trying to kill with slings and stones, or just parking them on the level above. The 1 in 50 games when a worm or early goliath beetle just so happens to block a corridor you need unblocked and thus, by sheer accident of geography, manages to actually make a difference in early game (when you might not have consumables available to circumvent) is not worth the 49 in 50 games in which they are either risk-free xp (bad) or a tedious insect-herding minigame (even worse). The other enemies of that type are even less justifiable, because by the time you are facing them you have ways to get around them without taking too many hits.

[duvessa]

I don't think Gastronok, cyclopes, etc. are good either. Being ranged does mean that they can be briefly dangerous if you teleport/shaft into them, unlike the melee-only slow monsters, but they're just as slow and bad as the melee-only ones in other circumstances. And you know what's even more dangerous if you teleport/shaft into it? A monster that isn't slow! So I don't see any benefit.

[and into]

I don't think Gastronok, cyclopes, etc. are good either. Being ranged does mean that they can be briefly dangerous if you teleport/shaft into them, unlike the melee-only slow monsters, but they're just as slow and bad as the melee-only ones in other circumstances. And you know what's even more dangerous if you teleport/shaft into it? A monster that isn't slow! So I don't see any benefit.

Maybe I just have a weird soft spot for them, but I think Gasty and cyclopes are OK (for the latter: in moderation, and despite the thematic fit they really don't belong in Shoals). When they are in LOS, they actually pose some threat (for when they can spawn), but it is usually easy to break LOS on them. That does still make them boring for even intermediate players with a bit of DCSS experience, but I think it reinforces some important lessons for newer players, in a way that goliath beetles and worms don't, due to the fact that goliath bs and worms do not have spells, or large rocks, or a likelihood of spawning with a hat that may carry a good brand like MR+. Worms and goliath beetles teach a really one-dimensional lesson (don't melee these guys unless your attack is faster than them) whereas cyclopes and Gastronok teach a slightly better one (use LOS to your advantage) early on, without being unduly threatening. That's my impression, at least.

[Patashu]

I don't think Gastronok, cyclopes, etc. are good either. Being ranged does mean that they can be briefly dangerous if you teleport/shaft into them, unlike the melee-only slow monsters, but they're just as slow and bad as the melee-only ones in other circumstances. And you know what's even more dangerous if you teleport/shaft into it? A monster that isn't slow! So I don't see any benefit.

By the same logic, if you're playing centaur, spriggan or even tengu with the movement boost from flying, every monster is bad because every monster is slower than you.

[and into]

I don't think Gastronok, cyclopes, etc. are good either. Being ranged does mean that they can be briefly dangerous if you teleport/shaft into them, unlike the melee-only slow monsters, but they're just as slow and bad as the melee-only ones in other circumstances. And you know what's even more dangerous if you teleport/shaft into it? A monster that isn't slow! So I don't see any benefit.

By the same logic, if you're playing centaur, spriggan or even tengu with the movement boost from flying, every monster is bad because every monster is slower than you.

Yes and no. Running away from/kiting 1 in 80 monsters is trivial in a way that doing the same against 20 in 80 is not. Spriggan and Centaur movement speed is extremely strong of course, but it is not quite analogous to "normal speed dude fighting slow dude" because encounters in Crawl do not happen in a vacuum, they occur on a floor in the dungeon in which you have imperfect knowledge of what is lurking around the corner. Having the very occasional fully kiteable monster is bad in a way that having faster than average species is not, though arguably the latter causes lots of problems and is bad as well (but in a different way).

[WalkerBoh]

I don't think Gastronok, cyclopes, etc. are good either. Being ranged does mean that they can be briefly dangerous if you teleport/shaft into them, unlike the melee-only slow monsters, but they're just as slow and bad as the melee-only ones in other circumstances. And you know what's even more dangerous if you teleport/shaft into it? A monster that isn't slow! So I don't see any benefit.

By the same logic, if you're playing centaur, spriggan or even tengu with the movement boost from flying, every monster is bad because every monster is slower than you.

Actually this means that centaur and spriggan are bad, not the monsters! And let's not forget about felid, which is the worst offender because it's so fragile that you literally have no choice but to kite every monster you possibly can. Yuck. At least with centaur you have so much HP that you can pretend you're not fast except against dangerous things.

[duvessa]

By the same logic, if you're playing centaur, spriggan or even tengu with the movement boost from flying, every monster is bad because every monster is slower than you.

Correct.

[TeshiAlair]

Regarding Centaurs, Spriggans, and Tengu:

I think Centaurs having a "burst of speed" active ability would be more than fair. Spriggan kinda need to be permaspeedy. Tengu, why not just special case it to make it flight without a speed buff?

[johlstei]

It already is special cased to be "flight with a speed buff". Gargoyles have regular movement delay even when flying.

[Igxfl]

By the same logic, if you're playing centaur, spriggan or even tengu with the movement boost from flying, every monster is bad because every monster is slower than you.

Correct.

Centaurs and spriggans need to join MD in Valhalla.

[khalil]

Centaurs and spriggans need to join MD in Valhalla.

One could give them a slight buff in return for changing them to normal speed. In general, I'd prefer trying to fix things that don't work, with removal being only done if the fix attempts fail.

[TeshiAlair]

No. Centaurs and spriggans both have interesting niches...though arguably without the speed buff, centaurs are a weird troll-elf hybrid.

[Igxfl]

Yeah, I guess I'm just annoyed by Centaurs and Spriggans because they make kiting worse.

Edit: ...where by worse I mean better, by better I mean ubiquitous, and by ubiquitous I mean boring.