FR: Show Invocation power (Like spellpower)

[damiac]

As it is now, I know that certain invocations are affected by piety, and invocations skill (or other skill, for certain gods). I also know that like spells, different invocations have different caps on their power. What I do not know is where my current invocations power actually is.

So for example, I don't know how much invocations I need to train for max slouch power. I don't even know where on the spectrum I currently am, if I knew I was at 2 of 6 pips of power, I'd train more invocations, if I knew I was at 6 of 6, I wouldn't. Currently all we get is fail %, and 0 fail% doesn't necessarily mean max power.

[johlstei]

Slouch's damage doesn't change with invo, only its failure rate. (Hence the topic.)

It doesn't really solve the complete problem though, a single number like spellpower can't really capture how a spell/godpower scales with training - maybe its duration goes up, maybe its chance of backfiring goes down, maybe its damage goes up. One bar for god powers would still be better than 0.

[TeshiAlair]

Does Qaz damage scale with Invo?

[johlstei]

Does Qaz damage scale with Invo?

Like crazy! Go play sprint with Qaz, you get more piety per monster so you are free to spam it. Train only invo and make that your main form of attack. It's nice in regular crawl but its game-breakingly good in sprint.

[KoboldLord]

By casual observation of Crawl threads in two other forums, the number one complaint about Qazlal is that her abilities do terrible damage, and this complaint is made exclusively by people who do not realize that the damage scales with invocations as much as it does. The game interface certainly doesn't take any great pains to disabuse them of their confusion on this matter.

There are a handful of deities for whom invocations are extremely vital even beyond success rate, but there are even more that you mostly shouldn't care about once you've got everything so it works at all. There is no obvious indications as to which is which, and no obvious indication to a new player that this is even a question that should be asked.

[damiac]

Precisely. Like how I thought I was improving slouch damage by training invo... (It's still a good idea with a chei character, so no harm done)

Another example is Zin, how much (if any) invo is needed for max power on recite?

[and into]

Slouch's damage doesn't change with invo, only its failure rate. (Hence the topic.)

It doesn't really solve the complete problem though, a single number like spellpower can't really capture how a spell/godpower scales with training - maybe its duration goes up, maybe its chance of backfiring goes down, maybe its damage goes up. One bar for god powers would still be better than 0.

I think for the most part it is relatively intuitive (for certain values of intuitive) to figure out what "higher spell power" means, and several of the cases in which it had not been obvious (like oz's armor) were actually changed so that spell power more reasonably reflects an increase in effectiveness. (If it hasn't been done already, a similar treatment should be given for Zin's Vitalization so that the stat boost is not equal exactly to invocations skill divided by 3, truncated.) There are some cases where it isn't intuitive, but generally that indicates some problem with exactly how the spell/ability functions.

In any case, a bar for invocations power would be extremely welcome.

If you'll pardon the slight tangent, I also think that implementing this display improvement would be a good occasion to make some god powers a bit more rational. Aside from Vitalization mentioned above, I think it would make sense for Bend Space to be listed as power N/A, for instance, and just let it be guaranteed to blink any blinkable enemies that are adjacent to you, since technically its power depends on invocations but the effect that higher power has on the ability is not very significant. It would also really help differentiate from standard Blink if the unique aspect of Bend Space actually triggered all the time. (Just set the damage it does to some small amount, like 1d4. You can give the ability a small piety cost if this is deemed necessary for balance.)

[damiac]

Sif's channelling ability should also have its Invo/4 truncated calculation changed (if it wasn't already, or if I wasn't going off bad information). Breakpoints are the devil's idle hands(That's how that saying goes right?)

Following your slight tangent, what exactly is the reason behind the bend space ability sometimes dragging enemies? Just to make it worse than regular blink?
Also, does it work with control teleport?

[and into]

I think channeling was changed, actually.

I don't think bend space works with control teleport, but then again it also ignores stasis and —Tele, maybe it ignores dimensional anchor (if not, it should do so), and it works fine in the abyss. Having it ignore all the usual things that affect blinking is clearer/more consistent, in addition to making it ~~special~~.

As for blinking stuff that was adjacent to you, it does actually give bend space a different feel from regular blink—*when* it triggers. It is like casting a dispersion + blink in one go. This makes it weaker than dispersion, but doesn't (in my experience) really make it much weaker or stronger than blink. In some situations better, in some situations maybe a bit worse, but for the most part just different. Which is why I'd just suggest letting the "dispersion" aspect of it trigger every time.

[damiac]

Ah, I thought it meant the enemy would keep their relative position to you, which made it sound like a bad thing(usually I blink to get away from enemies, not just for a change of scenery while I fight the same enemy)

[johlstei]

Slouch's damage doesn't change with invo, only its failure rate. (Hence the topic.)

It doesn't really solve the complete problem though, a single number like spellpower can't really capture how a spell/godpower scales with training - maybe its duration goes up, maybe its chance of backfiring goes down, maybe its damage goes up. One bar for god powers would still be better than 0.

I think for the most part it is relatively intuitive (for certain values of intuitive) to figure out what "higher spell power" means, and several of the cases in which it had not been obvious (like oz's armor) were actually changed so that spell power more reasonably reflects an increase in effectiveness. (If it hasn't been done already, a similar treatment should be given for Zin's Vitalization so that the stat boost is not equal exactly to invocations skill divided by 3, truncated.) There are some cases where it isn't intuitive, but generally that indicates some problem with exactly how the spell/ability functions.

In any case, a bar for invocations power would be extremely welcome.

If you'll pardon the slight tangent, I also think that implementing this display improvement would be a good occasion to make some god powers a bit more rational. Aside from Vitalization mentioned above, I think it would make sense for Bend Space to be listed as power N/A, for instance, and just let it be guaranteed to blink any blinkable enemies that are adjacent to you, since technically its power depends on invocations but the effect that higher power has on the ability is not very significant. It would also really help differentiate from standard Blink if the unique aspect of Bend Space actually triggered all the time. (Just set the damage it does to some small amount, like 1d4. You can give the ability a small piety cost if this is deemed necessary for balance.)

There are definitely still places where it's unclear. Freezing cloud's damage doesn't change, only its duration. Does repel missiles repel a larger percentage of missiles as you train charms? No, it just becomes less likely to phase out. Makhleb summoning has both a failure chance and a hostile chance and invo lowers both differently. (I think makhleb summoning should always succeed and failure chance should be rolled in to hostile chance - summoning a hostile demon is a better effect than the invocation just failing.) Things that have both duration and damage often leave ambiguity as to which one is going up.

[and into]

Well, true. "For certain values of" might have been generous. Personally, I would not be against adding to many descriptions in game a brief, single sentence that clarifies what X skill(s) will do for the thing being described. No formulas or anything like that, and you could even couch it in flavorful terms most of the time, but something like "Greater spell power will allow one to create longer lasting clouds of icy mist, but will not increase the intensity of the cold" would be sufficient, and I don't think it would go against any DCSS design principles.

There are actually a lot of descriptions that could use some cleaning up, as an aside. Let's take Ozocubu's Armour as an example:

This spell envelops the caster's body in a protective layer of ice. [great general description] The caster and the caster's equipment will not suffer cold from this layer, yet can be affected by other sources of cold normally. [little awkward] The spell will not function for casters already wearing heavy armour (any body armour with an encumbrance rating of 5 or more). [very helpful info] The effects of this spell are boosted if the caster is in Ice Form. [helpful info]

Overall that's pretty good, but you have a somewhat awkward and probably (maybe I'm wrong?) unnecessary sentence about this spell not harming your equipment (did this used to be the case back in Linley times, or something?). Yet, it isn't explicitly mentioned that heat will cause the layer to evaporate more quickly (an effect that higher spell power helps mitigate); however, it is pointed out that the spell effects are boosted if caster is in Ice Form, which is good info to include, but far more specific, and less likely to be relevant, compared to "getting hit with fire," which eventually happens to all characters that manage to stick around past the first few floors.

Anyway, I don't just want to complain about these things. I cannot code and I'm only solid in English, but if the developers could use an editor for any text that appears in game, I'd be glad to help out.

[dpeg]

and_into: That sounds good!

There is a manpower shortage right now... I don't think active developers would pick this up right now. Too many other, more important things to do. However, this is something where the community can help. Before making this a big project: I'd love if some of you could come up with a few, improved descriptions. Submit as a Mantis patch, or as a new Tavern thread. Then we can discuss, and if we reach concensus (hopefully!) ask for more.

I am also interested in improving mechanics, as you suggest with Makhleb's summoning. This should be a separate list.

[and into]

^ Cool, I'll try to help out as best I can. I'm useless with coding stuff, but I am fortunately proficient in opening files on a computer, so if someone can direct me (via PM if you want) to where descriptive text is located, so I don't have to copy by hand from wizmode, that would be best.

However, I didn't mean to hijack or derail damiac's thread. I think showing invocation "spell power" is a good idea. How much work that might take to code and implement, though, I don't know. But I think it would be worth doing, when someone can spare the time.

[dpeg]

Forgot to reply to damiac: I think that an invocation power bar is even more problematic than the spell power bars. (As has been discussed here.) However, what would definitely help are descriptions that say which god abilities benefit from Invocations (and probably in words also how strongly). This is also description material, however.

[damiac]

Well, don't some invocations cap out before 27 invocations skill, like how magic dart doesn't benefit from more conjurations training once you've reached full power? I agree a bar is unnecessary if they are all just scaled directly to the invocations skill, with no floor or ceiling.

[Hurkyl]

Overall that's pretty good, but you have a somewhat awkward and probably (maybe I'm wrong?) unnecessary sentence about this spell not harming your equipment (did this used to be the case back in Linley times, or something?).

One might worry about taking cold damage from casting the spell (like with Ozocubu's Refrigeration), and in older versions, that your potions might shatter.