Elyvilon Reform

[duvessa]

"yup this is true, im probs gonna thank this post. lets see what the next paragraph is"

I missed the "quote" button and hit the "thank" button.

"wat"

Changes that have been made in the last few versions that decrease the number of possible playstyle choices include, but are not limited to the following:
-New Nemelex gives the player no influence over what decks they get. I did not mind playing dungeon janitor at all if it let me have a chance at the rare decks.
-As of .15, player clinging is no more. For what pvrpose? The only reason why you would want to remove this, along with the swift boost, from spiderform is to limit the number of applications of the spell.
-Projectile traps no longer provide ammo.
-As of trunk, Twisted Resurrection is no more. Instead of trying to fix a very interesting and fun spell, they removed it altogether. TR was one of the things that really made you feel like a mad magician when playing a high-level necromancer.

I think this is the most Tavern-y post ever made.

[nagdon]

I will play DD of new Ely because it seems to be the only playable DD for me, as it bans and makes unneccessary the otherwise optimal strategy of healing from non-dangerous monsters via Vampiric Draining or vampiric weapons. It is annoying to let every nonthreatening monster into meele range and kill them there with Vampiric Draining instead of using the preferred killing method of the character.

[Sprucery]

I will play DD of new Ely because it seems to be the only playable DD for me

What's wrong with Makhleb?

[nagdon]

I will play DD of new Ely because it seems to be the only playable DD for me

What's wrong with Makhleb?

I almost never play Makhleb, because I usually learn Conj (and/or Summ) spells and don't want to duplicate them with invocations, but it's true that Makhleb healing doesn't need as much scumming as vampiricism (leaving alive harmless foes to be able to heal up from very low hp is an optimal but annoying startegy with Makhleb, but it isn't as bad as being forced to kill all rats/orcs/etc with a vampiric dagger on an EE instead of using spells).

[Quazifuji]

Trog also gives out-of-combat healing, although that obviously also conflicts with your desire to learn conjurations or summons.

[nagdon]

Trog also gives out-of-combat healing, although that obviously also conflicts with your desire to learn conjurations or summons.

My Trog-followers always die because they get too strong and then I get bored and careless; this is not a problem of DDs, this is a consequence of the strength of Trog. </offtopic>

[mechanicalmaniac]

I'm having a tough time believing that I've made it this long before I finally ended up reading this thread's title as "Evangelion Reform." /ot

After playing a HuHe, I have a bit more of an informed perspective on the changes. The thing that bugs me about the Ely reform is that it makes her less noteworthy among the gods. The most interesting thing about her up until this point was that she was the only god that rewarded not killing things. Now that weapon sacrifices are no more (oh well, less scumming I guess) and that pacification costs piety instead of netting it, Ely is just a healbot. You gain piety by exploring the world and are rewarded with healing abilities. That is disjointed and doesn't make sense. All other gods (except for new Nemelex, I guess) have some relation between what is offered to the worshiper and what is demanded from the worshiper. In Elyvilon's case, the player was asked to give up their 100% dedication to their murderhobo ways. In return, they received holy healing.

Now there is nothing to fill the "less-violent adventurer" niche.

Perhaps these complaints are unreasonable in comparison to the problems Ely had, but it just seems like Ely isn't so special anymore. Trog provides regen, Makhleb provides health on kill, and necromancy provides vampiricism, revivification, and more regeneration. Elyvilon once provided a drastically different method of healing. Now, she's just another one of them, just one that hates cannibalism, necromancy, and demon summoning.

[archaeo]

That seems like a problem with deep dwarves to me. Trying to balance things around deep dwarves will always be a problem.

I mean, even if this is true, isn't there some happy medium where Ely is a) not overpowered but b) still useful as a way to get a Deep Dwarf through the game?

I suspect that point could be reached by just raising the exploration piety a bit.

[Lasty]

elmdor said, "I had to keep spamming Minor Healing after most fights". If Ely piety generates fast enough to sustain that all game, it's no longer meaningfully limited for characters who don't need to spam minor healing in/after most fights, unless minor healing is effectively free.

The basic problem is that the ability design of "emergency healing in exchange for piety" is not really compatible with the idea of "species that spams healing powers after every fight".

[njvack]

Mod note: Deep qwarf stuff is now moved to its own thread.

[sdynet]

Inspired by this thread, and in particular some ideas floated by KoboldLord, I would like to propose some changes to Elyvilon.

hi.
A new opinion.

suggestion for ely's revamp

ely wants to aid others, its the deity of who loves peace. but he(she) is a realist, and its doctrine has no 'forbid taking other's life'. like tiger preys rabbit is no sin, if someone harms other for survival is no sin. but ely demands, 'do favor' if you can, if opponent is ready to accept mercy, 'show mercy'.

ely likes when you do this...
explore, destroy opponent's evil weapon
there is 2 ways ely's worshiper can get piety, one of them is explore. good folk's life is way of hardship, worshiping ely means they wants to tread thorny way. retaining faith in ely itself is ely's trial. ely knows that very well, so ely only pleased when devotees accept hardships that press their lives heavily and overcome it in every moments.
(way of hardship : an altruistic behavior for foes to seek right values by abandoning fast, easy, mighty powers)

second is, when opponent swings evil weapons, ely tries to destroy it, and if it succeed ely will be pleased.
ely don't deny existence of weapons. weapons itself do not have any goodwill or malice. but evil weapons forged for naught but evil consequences, so ely always have its eyes for such things, and deny its existence when it becomes used.

Q: why ely won't be pleased when heal others?
A: because good acts aren't deeds of expecting rewards. healing abilities are only means of good acts, so it can't be reward for it.

Ely dont likes...
inactivity (degrades 1 per 1000 turns)
cannibalism
such act incurs penance(or excommunication)
Casting any Necromancy or unholy spell. (Penance)
Knowingly using an evil item. (Penance)
Attacking or killing a non-hostile holy being. (Penance)
Attacking a neutral being. (Penance)
Letting your allies kill a non-hostile holy being. (Penance)
Killing your allies. (Penance)
Drinking a potion of blood. (Penance)
Killing living monsters while Divine Protection is active. (Penance)
Casting Necromutation. (Excommunication)

major change
1. ely no longer requires invo skills. since ely wont be pleased from act of worshiping. only believers' suffering proves their worth.

2. from worshiping ely gives permanent buff named peace*.
when you get damage from foes, there is a chance that buff's stack increases, if gained damage is high, or its source from unholy attacks, chance will be highly increases. max stacks up to 9.
*needs better idea for its name, perhaps.

3. heal, great heal, heal other, divine vigor no longer requires piety. instead, devotees can use heal or pacify monster by consuming peace stack. its efficiency determined by piety and number of peace stacks.
heal : consume 1~3 peace stacks.
great heal : requires at least 4 peace stacks, consume all peace stacks.
heal other : consume all peace stacks. can be used even with single peace stack.
divine vigor : requires at least 4 peace stacks, consume all peace stacks. increases max hp and mana + while infused with divine vigour, every acts requires hunger halved(even evo hunger can be reduced with this)

4. only purification, divine protect uses piety.
purification : uses 2 piety. reduces magic contamination, corrodes, drains as well. can't remove exh.
divine protection : same as before

5. if foe attacks worshiper with evil weapons, there is a chance of its weapon broken. when it happens worshiper gains piety by low chance.



in first, i'd like to address 'reality of ely' and would explain ely's revamp.
in players ranked by total score, number of players who worshiped ely within 1000th rank is only 3.
in tournament score, lets take a place with wins by god category, ely's score was 59 in 0.14. in 0.15 it become 68, and it increased to 85 in 0.16, then finally became 78 in 0.17.
of course, trying to explaining whole picture by simple numbers might be silly, but it could explain what it means.
they think ely is no fun.
they think ely is too hard to play.
they think ely is too weak.

we should revamp ely, regardless of its result, it should be done now.

why we should change ely in this way?
nowadays dcss heads to play [Intuitive ways]. it might have some different views, i guess most of crawlers would agree that.
for me, it has good side and bad side as well. but, sure thing is this tendency transparently opposite way from (old)ely's playstyle, so its been discarded.
so ely got rollback to original dungeon crawl's playstyle, its become straightforward... but it lost its charm.
so, here's the question:
then, we need to rollback once again as when it had piety from pacifying?
no. its not possible. so many crawlers think its boring way.

gain piety from pacifying opponent, its very old way now. it can't be accepted. but, it was identity of ely.
even more, ely's abilities had high frequency of usage, in past, it could be managed by pacifying...
nowadays current system makes gain piety only from explore, its totally broken. reducing used piety's amount might be an alternative.

but, as you could know, not many played ely in old versions, and also in recent versions. if it compared by cars, even you change its fuel(means of piety gain) buyer's comment would not change that greatly.

Car's frames(divine abilities) are difficult to change.
The frames that could've been used by car named Ely was used in other models(for instance ability like Zin's Sanctuary could've been Ely's). Also it is unclear whether it is its frame or engine(the piety management system) that people dislike.
Thus, it is logical to first try changing its engine which is easier to fix, than its frame which may be difficult to change.

Why should it change like this?
Crawl's recent changes aim for intuitive plays, and changing Ely's piety management seems fine for this purpose.
Ely's nature makes her abilities spammed and the piety cost and player's stress caused by it should be removed.
So, [peace] is the mechanics introduced to use abilities like minor/major healing, heal other or divine vigor preventing player stress and spamming at the same time.
You may wonder why should we implement a mechanism like this and what this mechanism has to do with Ely?
What Ely wants from her followers is mercy and peace, upon striking others Ely will tolerate but will not provide any powers for those actions.
However, if her followers do not take the easy road of violence and suffer from self-mortification she will be proud.
When injured by the self-mortification, she will provide little comfort(peace) to compensate.
It is possible to use the comfort provided for oneself(using minor/major healing), or others(heal other).
Peace, is not the compensation for faith, it is a staff that aid walking the road of mercy and peace.

Cleanse and Divine Protection is rather difficult to implement and use under this [peace] mechanism. So these abilities seems better left as it is now for is simple to use when they cost piety, and that cost seems adequate. Or maybe lesser/greater healing could be merged just like lesser/greater heal other merged.

Piety gain from destroying evil weapons is intended to help Ely's followers from recovering piety loss from using using abilities like Divine Protection, for gaining piety solely from dungeon exploring is rather difficult.

I do not expect all of my opinions will be reflected in game and I admit I may have missed some problems.
For instance, one major heal using all [peace] stacks could mean that followers of Ely are more prone to series of threats and may make Ely a worse version of wands of healing.
So I hope for various suggestions to improve her.
And I hope that one day Ely may become a welcomed choice for dcss players.
Thanks for reading.

I heard. This is a new topic. so, Raise a new thread.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=19736

[RBrandon]

I suppose you didn't notice, but Elyvilon was already reformed.

Unfortunately, the new version is even less fun than the old.

[Reptisaurus]

These proposals will destroy the unique feeling and playing style for a follower of Elyvilon in favour of yet another god with abilities focused on game mechanics. As it it, the proposal more or less forces the player to abandon the peaceful style of playing and train to become the usual killing machine.

Yep, that is exactly what happened. Made Ely completely un-fun for me.