Feedback on Undead expiring

[Berder]

I just played a CeFE^Kiku and got my first chance to try out the animate dead expiration.

• In most fights I was only able to have a small number of zombies with me (2-4) if any.
• They seem to expire after I rest once or twice
• Kiku corpse delivery was about as strong as normal

Bottom line, necro was strong enough with corpse delivery but I wouldn't want to play a non-Kiku necromancer anymore, due to no horde to back me up.

I would suggest increasing the duration a lot for the zombies, and have it scale well with spellpower. Let skeletons expire quickly as they currently do because it's a low level spell but if you invest 10-12 necro I think you should be able to carry around an army of zombies through the whole level if you want to.

[adozu]

skeletons "expire" about as soon as they get in combat anyway.

[dowan]

That's not true. In most of my winning games, regardless of background, I have armies of skeletons on every level. But I guess if you let the skeletons be the front line, rather than backup, they probably won't last long.

[Berder]

That's not true. In most of my winning games, regardless of background, I have armies of skeletons on every level. But I guess if you let the skeletons be the front line, rather than backup, they probably won't last long.

There has been a recent change to skeletons and zombies so they will now expire by themselves after a period of time. That's what this thread is about; your old games would have been before the change.

[bcadren]

I think this effectively removes the one reason I keep that spell into late-game/extended...using a horde of things as a distraction so I can run away (escape plan for when I run out of MP on a mage; mostly).

[dowan]

That's not true. In most of my winning games, regardless of background, I have armies of skeletons on every level. But I guess if you let the skeletons be the front line, rather than backup, they probably won't last long.

There has been a recent change to skeletons and zombies so they will now expire by themselves after a period of time. That's what this thread is about; your old games would have been before the change.

I realize that. I was responding to

skeletons "expire" about as soon as they get in combat anyway.

I do think this change is probably a good idea, though I wonder if animate dead was really subject to the same abuse animate skeleton was.

[ajon]

what abuse was animate skeleton subject to?

[Wahaha]

what abuse was animate skeleton subject to?

It was too good for a level 1 spell later in the game.

[duvessa]

I think this effectively removes the one reason I keep that spell into late-game/extended...using a horde of things as a distraction so I can run away (escape plan for when I run out of MP on a mage; mostly).

Good.

[bcadren]

I think this effectively removes the one reason I keep that spell into late-game/extended...using a horde of things as a distraction so I can run away (escape plan for when I run out of MP on a mage; mostly).

Good.

It's not much of a different TBH; I throw the spell away as soon as I get a wide area of effect spell and it gets replaced by cBlink and SButterflies. Butterflies isn't as good; but it does the same thing [At high enough levels the Zombie damage is negligible.]

[mps]

Does this change affect zombies created by Yred invocation as well?

It's not much of a different TBH; I throw the spell away as soon as I get a wide area of effect spell and it gets replaced by cBlink and SButterflies. Butterflies isn't as good; but it does the same thing [At high enough levels the Zombie damage is negligible.]

? ? ?

Zombie damage remains very good throughout the game, considering the numbers of zombies you can create. The only issue in the late game is that some monsters can chew them up quickly with fireballs or hellfire. Of course, they're worse than real summons, like MM, but the spell is cheap to get, the zombies are cheap to make, and, crucially, the results don't depend on spellpower.

Anyway, one of the best things about zombies is that they don't get pissed off at you when you inner flame/immolation them and the ones available via kiku's delivery service at high necromancy make large explosions. That's good damage.

[Lasty]

Does this change affect zombies created by Yred invocation as well?

No, I left Yred's invocation as it was for two reasons: 1) greater differentiation between the two is good, IMO; 2) Yred already has tons of permanent allies, so the problem with permanent allies is going to be with the god no matter what I do to the zombies.

Anyway, one of the best things about zombies is that they don't get pissed off at you when you inner flame/immolation them and the ones available via kiku's delivery service at high necromancy make large explosions. That's good damage.

I'm pretty sure zombies and skeletons currently get pissed at you if you inner flame them. They don't get mad if you immolation them, but neither does anything else; they (and other minions) will get pissed if the explosion from your ?immolation hurts them tho.

[jejorda2]

The general problem is that corpses are something you have after a fight, and zombies are something you need during a fight (Or during an escape). It makes we want to be able to carry around a bag of bones (non-inventory, like gold) to use for necromantic armour and allies.

I guess it encourages a playstyle where you win an easy fight, then use all your MP to prepare for an unknown fight, then go off looking for a fight. If the fight is too hard, then you don't have MP to cope. If it takes too long to find it, your army expires. But maybe you get lucky and the chain keeps going and you roll over everything from fight to fight.

What if Embrace was targeted, and could turn Skeletons into Zombies and renew their duration? And Zombies would decay to skeletons before expiring?

[mps]

Anyway, one of the best things about zombies is that they don't get pissed off at you when you inner flame/immolation them and the ones available via kiku's delivery service at high necromancy make large explosions. That's good damage.

I'm pretty sure zombies and skeletons currently get pissed at you if you inner flame them. They don't get mad if you immolation them, but neither does anything else; they (and other minions) will get pissed if the explosion from your ?immolation hurts them tho.

Hm, perhaps I've been wiki'd.

[Kismet]

Right now it is kind of ideal to pull stuff back to corpses so you have max zombie time. What if animate dead/raise skeleton was a toggleable reaping effect?

[neil]

I'm pretty sure zombies and skeletons currently get pissed at you if you inner flame them. They don't get mad if you immolation them, but neither does anything else; they (and other minions) will get pissed if the explosion from your ?immolation hurts them tho.

That was true for a little while, but as of 0.15 no one minds being the target of inner flame. But you're right that being caught in the explosion will anger things.

[njvack]

Right now it is kind of ideal to pull stuff back to corpses so you have max zombie time.

Maybe zombie duration (and simulacrum duration) should depend (at least partly) on corpse freshness?

[Lasty]

FWIW, the timer zombies/skeletons are currently using is identical to the one DChannel spectres and simulacra use.

[Siegurt]

One of the problems with undead has always been that you need to kill stuff with no help *before* you can create any minions (this has been true for a while, and with corpse dropping being random, sometimes you need to kill several things on each floor)

Since there's not a reliable way of dealing damage with necromancy after the early game (pain sucks once things have MR, and vampiric draining is really only good damage wise if you need the healing it provides) you usually have to split XP off into doing damage with a weapon (unless you luck out enough to get bolt of draining, *and* dispel undead (or control undead) then, you can pretty much treat necromancer like any other elemental conjurer, weapons are only needed for popcorn when saving mana)

This isn't actually a very bad thing, most spellcasters should hybridize in general, but it's even more critical with necromancers, since they need to be able to kill things *without* their spells, just to be able to kill things *with* their spells. I'm not sure I'd play a necromancer over a summoner now in most cases (DD being a notable exception)

May I suggest that, since the primary reason we prevented zombies from using stairs in the first place was to "expire" your horde at level changes, that now-expiring zombies/skeletons be able to take stairs, this would at least let you retain a more constant power rate (It'd also increase the time pressure on necromancers, making them more fun to play IMHO)

[Sar]

Pain is actually the second best level 1 damage spell (maybe the best now that Freeze lost its stun) since it has a good range, great damage, is a single school spell and ignores AC/EV. Yes, it requires a MR check, but it has a huge Agony-like boost to success. It's really, really good.

Edit: yeah, if by "after early game" you mean Lair-ish or so then I guess you are right! But I indeed would try getting some weapon by that time, especially since Vamp Drain makes melee safer.

[Sandman25]

Also Kiku character entering Vaults 5 with 20+ Zombies might be too strong even by Kiku standards.

[Berder]

FWIW, the timer zombies/skeletons are currently using is identical to the one DChannel spectres and simulacra use.

It's fine for dchannel because it gives you so many allies that your horde can roll around the whole level killing everything, and also it can help you significantly in a single fight starting from nothing. I'm not sure about simulacra.

It's a big nerf for animate dead unless maybe you are speedrunning. If you are playing carefully, like I said you tend to only have a couple zombies if any, just from the single previous fight. Necromancers previously could gather a horde that backs them up and that they can retreat behind; this was the major advantage of being a necromancer.

My suggestion:

1. Let animate dead duration scale well with spellpower, so that at 100 spellpower it lasts at least 3x as long as now, while at low spellpower it expires as fast or faster than it does now
2. Leave animate skeleton the way it is, since after all it is a level 1 spell and shouldn't be too powerful

[Sar]

It was supposed to be a big nerf to AD though?

[Siegurt]

Pain is actually the second best level 1 damage spell (maybe the best now that Freeze lost its stun) since it has a good range, great damage, is a single school spell and ignores AC/EV. Yes, it requires a MR check, but it has a huge Agony-like boost to success. It's really, really good.

Edit: yeah, if by "after early game" you mean Lair-ish or so then I guess you are right! But I indeed would try getting some weapon by that time, especially since Vamp Drain makes melee safer.

Well, x3.5 isn't *quite* as awesome as agony's x5 enchantment power, but yes, point taken (Things at or over 90 MR aren't that common (pain maxes at 87.5 enchantment power), I guess it's just biased bad impression after failing a number of times)

In fact did mean "in or after lair" when I said "after early game".

[Berder]

It was supposed to be a big nerf to AD though?

If I understood the reason correctly, it was intended to make it so non-necromancers have less incentive to grab up a barely-castable animate dead (with wiz maybe) or animate skeleton. I don't think it was intended to be a nerf to characters that are heavily invested in necromancy, was it? That's why I think the duration should be strongly spellpower-dependent.

[Sar]

That's an interesting idea. Currently Kiku is a great god even for medium-low Int chars. If low-pow AD makes zombies/skellies/simulacra that are noticeably worse than current ones that'd be a Kiku nerf. On other hand, if the low-pow derived undead aren't much worse than current ones and the high-pow ones are noticeably better, I think that'd be nice.

[mps]

The issue with animate skeleton and to a lesser extent animate dead is that they're so cheap to get and their effects don't scale with spellpower, but instead dungeon level -- they're basically a poor man's shadow creatures. Tying duration to spellpower might make sense. Better would be tying hitdice to spellpower, with a minus or percentage decrease at low power scaling up to usual hitdice at high power. This would prevent animate skeleton from being a no-brainer for every non-Trog melee character. Good results would actually depend on skill investment. If it takes 10 necromancy to have allies substantially better than what you'd get out of summon imp or something and 15 to get something rivalling shadow creatures, then there's much less of a problem. Anyway, I don't think duration is the issue.

[Jeremiah]

The issue with animate skeleton and to a lesser extent animate dead is that they're so cheap to get and their effects don't scale with spellpower, but instead dungeon level -- they're basically a poor man's shadow creatures. Tying duration to spellpower might make sense. Better would be tying hitdice to spellpower, with a minus or percentage decrease at low power scaling up to usual hitdice at high power. This would prevent animate skeleton from being a no-brainer for every non-Trog melee character. Good results would actually depend on skill investment. If it takes 10 necromancy to have allies substantially better than what you'd get out of summon imp or something and 15 to get something rivalling shadow creatures, then there's much less of a problem. Anyway, I don't think duration is the issue.

I suggested an idea kind of similar to this in this thread

[Rast]

FR: Zombies continue to rot after being reanimated, keeping the original rot timer. They would rot down to skeletons and then crumble back to dust.

[Hurkyl]

Pain is actually the second best level 1 damage spell (maybe the best now that Freeze lost its stun) since it has a good range, great damage, is a single school spell and ignores AC/EV. Yes, it requires a MR check, but it has a huge Agony-like boost to success. It's really, really good.

Pain barely does more damage than Magic Dart; in that respect, I believe it does the second least damage of all of the level 1 spells (at least if I count the extra damage you can do with Sting and Shock).

The fact it ignores AC is making it look like it has a better damage roll than it actually does as compared to the other level 1 spells.

(This comment is not meant to dispute anything else in your quote)

[Sar]

Pain barely does more damage than Magic Dart

Interesting. I guess ignoring both AC and EV makes it look better, yeah - MD struggles with anything that has AC and EV-checking spells feel pretty lousy at low power.

[dpeg]

One of the problems with undead has always been that you need to kill stuff with no help *before* you can create any minions (this has been true for a while, and with corpse dropping being random, sometimes you need to kill several things on each floor)

I always considered this to be a good thing, e.g. on the old DK background: it meant that you had to choose your early opponents wisely.

May I suggest that, since the primary reason we prevented zombies from using stairs in the first place was to "expire" your horde at level changes, that now-expiring zombies/skeletons be able to take stairs, this would at least let you retain a more constant power rate (It'd also increase the time pressure on necromancers, making them more fun to play IMHO)

Oh, I wouldn't want that. If need be, we can extend the timer. I've been suggesting expiration of zombies (along with others), but I wouldn't mind if the timer is long enough to generally clear a level with them. What we definitely don't want is keeping large swathes of strong zombies around forever... that can be abused (and has been, even by me )

[njvack]

The zombie tactic that felt really cheap to me (and is pretty well mitigated by this) is making a huge cloud of zombies hanging out at the stairs, so you can bring something dangerous up and have it instantly mobbed.

My gut says right now the timer feels a little short; it discourages me from resting up after fights. Maybe that's not so bad, though?

[thromnambular]

What if zombies just expired once you leave the level instead of having a timer?

[Sar]

The zombie tactic that felt pretty cheap to me was making a huge cloud of zombies and every time something really dangerous enters your vision just taking a step back and waiting until You feel more experienced appears in my message log. Works best in areas with lots of strong zombie fodder like Spider (fast zombies) and Snake (constrict-y zombies). Killed Nikola that way, Mara too I think, lesser uniques. Now accumulating a critical mass of zombies is much harder, at least without Kiku (but gods are allowed to be strong, right?).

[Kismet]

FR: Zombies continue to rot after being reanimated, keeping the original rot timer. They would rot down to skeletons and then crumble back to dust.

This is a cool idea, very organic and eliminates/merges a layer of obfuscation.

[elmdor]

On the other hand, new players might expect enemy undead to rot and expire in the same way.

[duvessa]

Why keep placing zombies/skeletons/simulacra as regular monsters at all? They're just weaker copies of existing monsters with a different set of resistances; not exactly adding a lot of variety, there.

[adozu]

with the added benefit of having a common model, ever being "mangled" by a titan skeleton you didn't notice was a titan because you just fought 10 harmless hill giant skeletons?

[Sandman25]

Why keep placing zombies/skeletons/simulacra as regular monsters at all? They're just weaker copies of existing monsters with a different set of resistances; not exactly adding a lot of variety, there.

The different set of resistances makes them interesting for some characters (VM, Ne, IE, Su, En, vampiric weapon), I think changing them to keep normal speed (only for hostile monsters) might be a better solution.

[Sar]

I like vaults that place a necromancer and a bunch of corpses but other than that I'd agree with removing zombies and skellies - non-regenerating slower-than-you (unless they aren't!) monsters are just not very interesting/good. Wights do a better job of being earlygame undead groups.

I had an idea about making player-created zombies having a set of "charges" (depending on spellpower) which are spent on attack and when they expire zombie/skeleton just falls apart. But that still has the problem of creating a bunch of zombies to swap with them so it's probably not great.

[mps]

The solution to the zombies mobbing stair-danced enemy trick is to make enemies refuse to follow you upstairs into a crowd of zombies. Kind of like how they don't always walk into clouds.

If you think zombies should stay around long enough to clear a level, then you actually think zombies should stay around forever (which is good). The best way to make allies you have a (potentially) limited supply of run out is to make them die in combat more easily.

Removing zombies/simulacra/skeletons, especially simulacra, is not going to lead to any real improvements in the game. They have various interactions with spells and gods that would be thrown out, e.g. control undead, any god that gives piety for undead kills or gives piety for non-undead kills, etc.

[Sandman25]

Spectral monsters from Death Channel already expire instantly when you leave the level (and is a limiting factor for stairdancing). Zombies/skeletons should be changed alike IMHO

[Siegurt]

Actually, after reading this and all the reasons for the expiring to happen, it seems like:

The intention behind expiring zombies is not that you not be able to use them to clear a level, but rather that they be unavailable for stairdancing abuse.

One of the suggestions above was to have the zombies expire when you leave the level.
Another suggestion was to retain the original rot timer and have the zombies rot at that rate.

I think is an opportunity for an interesting interaction *and* increase the tactical use and make necromancy interestingly differentiated from summons:

I would do this:

When you leave the level "The necromatic energies binding your slaves dissipates as you leave the level"

All the zombies fall over and become unanimated corpses with their original rot timers intact (Aged forward for however long you kept them animated), they might degrade instantly to skeletons, or dust, or just be not-fresh corpses any longer, they age instantly as soon as you walk off the level.

I'd also make the MP spent to animate corpses (Whether animate dead or animate skeleton) not regen until you either leave the level, or use an ability to "Reclaim your necromatic energies" this would free you up to regen those MP and drop all currently-animated corpses as above.

Note that you can animate multiple critters at a time, so it'd be efficent to gather up an army, free them all, then reanimate the lot, but you're going to lose all the not-freshest corpses that way.

Anyway, this *also* means that animate skeleton is significantly less efficient than animate dead (Since it's one corpse per) and animated skeletons can't rot into skeletons, so when released they are more likely to just blow away.

I realize that's a lot more work than just implementing a timer, but I think it would make for better gameplay, differentiate undead from summons, and serve the intended purpose.

[Rast]

On the other hand, new players might expect enemy undead to rot and expire in the same way.

I'm OK with that.

[Berder]

Note that you can animate multiple critters at a time, so it'd be efficent to gather up an army, free them all, then reanimate the lot, but you're going to lose all the not-freshest corpses that way.

That kind of micromanagement sounds like it could get annoying.

Also, having zombies reduce your max MP would be a big nerf to magic-focused necromancers, meaning they can't cast as many necro damage spells or other conjurations etc, while not being much of an issue for melee-focused characters who picked up animate dead and aren't using most of their MP.


If truly it's all just about avoiding zombie stairdancing, just having all your zombies turn to dust as soon as you leave the level sounds like a good solution. No need for the other stuff.

Otherwise I would support some kind of spellpower dependence so that a magic-focused necromancer can have his horde of undead like before, but a plain bruiser wouldn't find animate skeleton/animate dead so clearly worth it.

[Siegurt]

Note that you can animate multiple critters at a time, so it'd be efficent to gather up an army, free them all, then reanimate the lot, but you're going to lose all the not-freshest corpses that way.

That kind of micromanagement sounds like it could get annoying.

Well, you get decreasing returns the more you do it, this is the kind of thing I would expect you do maybe once a level, max, but maybe it would be too annoying, it's not critical in any casel

Also, having zombies reduce your max MP would be a big nerf to magic-focused necromancers, meaning they can't cast as many necro damage spells or other conjurations etc, while not being much of an issue for melee-focused characters who picked up animate dead and aren't using most of their MP.

Hm, I think having zombies reduce your max MP (optionally, recall that in my suggestion, you can free them at will) would be a smaller nerf than the current "you-just-cant-retain-a-very-large-army-at-all-without-them-expiring" nerf, but maybe not. I don't recall the last time I had a gigantic zombie horde and needed to cast a bunch of conjurations on *top* of all having an army of undead. Generally my magic-focused necromancers need to blast things a lot when they don't have an army to speak of.

The idea here is that you get to maintain a small army indefinitely for a small cost, but if you want to grow it really large you're either going to have to sacrifice some of your minions or sacrifice more and more of your max MP. (Which a magic-focused caster can better afford in any case)

Again not critical, but having some cost associated with retaining a large army means there's a balancing act to play, and I think that lends something valuable to the play experience.

If truly it's all just about avoiding zombie stairdancing, just having all your zombies turn to dust as soon as you leave the level sounds like a good solution. No need for the other stuff.

Well, it may be all about zombie dancing (Can we make that the official name for that, I just like the way it sounds but I suspect that the feeling is that with summons getting ratched down with a maximum maintainable army that undead armies might be next on the nerfing block for similar reasons, and my suggestion is a way to do that in an interesting play-enhancing fashion.

[Berder]

I don't recall the last time I had a gigantic zombie horde and needed to cast a bunch of conjurations on *top* of all having an army of undead. Generally my magic-focused necromancers need to blast things a lot when they don't have an army to speak of.

Well, that's you. I've had many games where I gather zombies behind me, and stand at the front line shooting enemies with bolt of draining or other conjurations. LRD is also good with this since it can be smite targeted.

[Shard1697]

I don't recall the last time I had a gigantic zombie horde and needed to cast a bunch of conjurations on *top* of all having an army of undead. Generally my magic-focused necromancers need to blast things a lot when they don't have an army to speak of.

Well, that's you. I've had many games where I gather zombies behind me, and stand at the front line shooting enemies with bolt of draining or other conjurations. LRD is also good with this since it can be smite targeted.

Why wouldn't you stand behind and shoot through them if you're using bolt of draining?

[njvack]

Now that zobs/skeles/simulacra aren't permanent, can they please pretty please move at normal speed?