Make LRD unable to break stone/metal walls

[Croases]

What purpose does that serve, other than making people cast LRD on Tomb walls/Hell end vaults fifty times in a row? Stone and metal usually mean that you're not intended to dig into a vault, except you can break in anyway if you have the patience to sit around casting at walls until you hit that 3% shatter chance. "It's loud so monsters may wake and wander in" is one counterargument but it evidently isn't enough of a detriment to create real choices (especially in Tomb where your side of things is mostly safe anyway).

I'm ambivalent on crystal walls because them being unbreakable might result in people luring monsters to crystal tiles just to LRD them, but when crystal generates it usually generates in sufficient amounts to do that even with breakage, so that might be a non-issue.

I'm also ambivalent on Shatter keeping that property, since unlike high-power LRD it's a major investment. But maybe wallbreaking should be unique to Lugonu after all.

[bcadren]

I've used this tactic. For a few specific uses (avoiding hell lords, breaking into the Slime vault without killing TRJ, Getting the loot from certain vaults (avoiding mutagenic clouds, etc.) it's pretty worth the investment. But, I'll say that either:

1. The odds should be better. (3% on metal is extremely tedious; but can be worth it to avoid Dispater or Asmodeus). The truly optimal way of doing it can take a LOT of realtime. (Cast, Channel MP, repeat). Which is kinda grindy and somethign we should avoid.
   OR
2. Yea it should be Shatter Unique. I'd hate to see it go; but 3% chance to break through metal is more tedious than it's worth usually. And when it is worth it. It's about as useful as cBlink, but only for limited uses.

[duvessa]

From the removal of Dig spell etc. it seems to me like digging is intended to be a limited resource (and I agree with that). Which means it's really bad that LRD and IOOD destroy walls; IOOD especially has no reason to do it.

This does require changing a lot of vaults, since stone/metal/crystal are usually placed with the expectation that some players will LRD them.

[Hurricos]

The chance should just be allowed to rise with spellpower... Metal does, stone does not, neither rocks or crystal.

Vault breaking is one EE's greatest strengths, along with killhole creation. Shatter can still retain the advantage of being fast enough about it to get the job done sans letting things move around too much, but in the end OP's suggestion is a massive nerf.

I would suggest increasingly higher chance of breaking with each consecutive Lee, so as to descum vault opening. That, or let power increase breaking chance.

[njvack]

+1 on "digging should be a limited resource" (or require Formicid tradeoffs). Shatter is probably OK because you need to get Shatter and you can't exactly target it but generally I agree with duvessa; it would be better if LRD and OOD didn't destroy terrain.

[archaeo]

You don't necessarily have to change all those vaults, duvessa. They could always change dig/disint to be capable of breaking stone/metal/crystal but require the use of more charges/hitting it more than once. That said, I'd be fine if the devs decided that they didn't want terrain to be manipulated/destroyable, that's a defensible position, but it doesn't seem like the devs' goal?

Of course, I also like how enemy IOOD works, and I'd be sad to see that wall destruction effect go away, but I bet I'm in the minority on that one.

[njvack]

Enemy IOOD ruining walls is fine (as is monster dig, I think) -- I have a hard time imagining a case where lugging around an alich or deep troll or even orb spider to dig a killhole is anything except a stupid monster trick. Endless player dig primarily paid for by being tedious is the thing that's not great.

I've occasionally had LRD destroy chokepoints and wished it hadn't, but it's really rare.

[Hurricos]

Why exactly does dig have to be consumable when EE has always been about manipulating rock? Seriously ... Why does everything have to be standardized around 'optimal' gameplay, instead of optimizing the gameplay of less-than-optimal styles? This kind of thinking is what reduces the fun of adaptation in this game down to the raw numbers the RNG gives you on your artefacts and consumables. Soon all wanderers will start with two bread rations and a -8 club for balance.

There was a time we killed Orbs of Fire with Earth elementals, but then they took that away from us. Forceful dismissal and (pseudo-)permanent TSO allies, VS dragonbitespam, Fo large rocks and statue vampires of TSO. Hellfire-resistant tentacles, 62% GDR gargoyle statues, all gone, because they weren't like everything else. And that's just off of the top of my head ...

[Hurricos]

Let's review why Dig the spell was removed.

"Allowing cheap, infinite digging out of combat is problematic, and with Felids now able to use wands it's possible for them to dig in places where they really need to for whatever reason, without needing the spell to still exist."

So, let's see what other sources of Dig or Disintegration give us in terms of the reason why Dig was removed:

* Cheap, infinite digging

LRD is not cheap. It requires 15MP per tile on average, causing noise 3 (and in cases where you need bent holes for LoS limitation, taking a significant amount of damage). It is pseudo-infinite because of the hungering of L5 spell (350; 20 int + 17 Spc for zero hunger - not a small investment for most characters that need digging), but it's not particularly hard to deal with that hunger (which is >15x as intense as Digging is for rock due to the efficiency of LRD).

OOD is cheaper MP-wise, but significantly less accurate, so it might as well be the same cost. Higher investment requirement, significantly less control, though you don't usually get hit by your own spell when digging ... still, OOD cannot replace /dig for most situations.

* Out of combat

LRD is noisy as hell. Spamming sound 15 / 20 / 25 is going to wake things up, and you won't be alone for long unless you're making a very long tunnel or burrowing into a vault after clearing out the rest of the level (which has been one of Lee's biggest uses despite how intensive it is to do with heavier stone / metal vaults).

* Felid nonsense

OK, sure, Dig was removed because there became a consumable way for all characters to dig. Dig is a consumable now because it's too strong to be a spell, but LRD for digging is a fraction as strong, yet has a unique place and neat synchronicity with Statue Form to make killholes without killing yourself as a caster.

The idea that stronger vaults are designed with stone and metal in order to prevent you from entering is silly, because the point of EE has always been to control Earth - to manipulate solid materials and get around them. No other school (mumble mumble OOD) lets you get around walls. Instead of targeting one of EE's greatest strengths tor removal, we should be fixing the amount of scumming required to use those strengths.

[Siegurt]

I would probably make the chance of lrd shattering a given thing go from 0 to 100% at particular spell power breaks, that does give weird plateaus for spell power. But it would eliminate the tedium (either you can break it, or you can't, either way you do it and move on) it would comprise a power increase for lrd, but not a problematic one imho. Making the spell more predictable would make me much happier with it, regardless of power level.

I think shatter breaking a random smattering of things in los seems non problematic to me

[bcadren]

I would probably make the chance of lrd shattering a given thing go from 0 to 100% at particular spell power breaks, that does give weird plateaus for spell power.

We could move those spell power breaks high enough so...a non-EE (or an EE that's afflicted with Subdued Magic), would need to quaff brilliance to break Stone or Metal. IE: ########.. instead of ######.... for stone and #########. for Metal.

[Siegurt]

I guess Alternatively it could be made deterministic, I.e. With x spell power it always takes exactly y lrd casts to break material z (where y is always less than say, 5 or infinity)

[edgefigaro]

LRD breaking walls digging/disintigration cannot is a non-trivial aspect of the earth school. It is one of my favorite parts of the background. Certianly more fun than the shock bounce minigame of AE.