Spriggans and regen/invis

[Sandman25]

My understanding of intention for regeneration hunger and invisibility hunger is that it forces player to stop fighting and eat some chunks, you cannot fight non-stop.
Unfortunately it affects Sp in a very different way - Sp cannot eat chunks and thus they run out of permafood so it has strategic cost instead of tactical one. I suggest to either disable regeneration/invisibility for Sp or remove their hunger cost for Sp. Player does not know whether it is better to use regeneration or just rest, also player does not know which of invisibility or (regeneration + resting) is better for killing a group of monsters.

Edit. As suggested I am adding here that I fight 200% HP monsters.

[byrel]

Regeneration is only slightly less efficient food-wise than just resting. Passive regen from amulet/TLA is generally more efficient. It's not a factor in deciding to use regenerate in my experience.

For Invisibility, Spriggans are interesting because they're almost the only case where the food clock can actually be meaningful. I like that about them... Any high-level spell ends up eating into your strategic time. Invis gives you a tactical benefit in favor of a strategic flexibility. But in the end the decision is more 'if I use invis too many times now, I won't be able to get 15 runes.' Unless you're using other level7+ spells regularly, the food clock is irrelevant in a 3-rune game.

The other factor is that spriggans now have easy access to a god that relieves their strategic limit entirely, Gozag. He's guaranteed to offer you food shops. If you want to build your spriggan in a way which emphasizes one of the species weaknesses (say you want to cast firestorm a lot) you need to get external tools to compensate. A staff of Energy, Gozag, whatever.

TL;DR I'm fine with spriggan's being strategically penalized for things which are typically a tactical limit. I don't think food makes a terribly good tactical limit anyhow.

[radinms]

the problem of invisi is contam.
due to contam, non-stop fighting is very difficult for stabber.
(if you do non-stop invisi fighting, you can't use invisi when you really really need invisi)
so after using invisi fighting, always 5. 5. 5. 5. 5. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannoyinggggggggggggggggggg

very very annoying, so i tend to not to use invisi as soon as possible (especially in 0.17 invisi nerf. sadly perfect stealth is no more)

[Sandman25]

That was not theoretical example, I am running out of food in my game where I have regen amulet and ring of invis. My main complaint is that I have no idea what is better: invis or normal fighting + regen so I would prefer to remove the choice even if it means Sp cannot use invis.
It is not fun to starve when you don't understand where your mistake (or suboptimal play) was.

  Code:

SpAK the Unseen (Spriggan Abyssal Knight)          Turns: 87332, Time: 06:12:40

Health: 112/112    AC: 18    Str:  6    XL:     20   Next: 12%
Magic:  40/40      EV: 35    Int: 15    God:    Lugonu [******]
Gold:   1140       SH:  0    Dex: 23    Spells: 12 memorised, 10 levels left

rFire  + . .     SeeInvis +     a - +3 dagger (elec)
rCold  + . .     Clarity  .     d - +6 mottled dragon armour {rSticky}
rNeg   . . .     SustAt   .     (shield restricted)
rPois  .         Gourm    .     k - +2 hat
rElec  .         Spirit   .     D - +2 cloak
rCorr  .         Warding  .     (gloves unavailable)
rMut   .         Stasis   .     (boots unavailable)
MR     +++..                    r - amulet of regeneration
Stlth  +++++++++.               c - ring of protection from cold {rC+, !d}
                                f - ring of protection from fire {rF+, !d}

@: deflect missiles, very quick, extremely resistant to hostile enchantments,
incredibly stealthy
A: unfitting armour, see invisible, dopey 1, herbivore 3, speed 3, slow
metabolism 2
a: Depart the Abyss, Bend Space, Banish, Corrupt, Enter the Abyss, Renounce
Religion
}: 1/15 runes: gossamer


You are on level 3 of the Elven Halls.

You are dopey. (Int -2)


   Skills:
 + Level 14.7 Fighting
 - Level 10.0 Short Blades
 - Level 3.2 Armour
 - Level 18.9 Dodging
 - Level 19.9 Stealth
 * Level 15.0 Spellcasting
 - Level 10.0 Hexes
 - Level 14.5 Charms
 - Level 4.8 Translocations
 + Level 9.7 Air Magic
 - Level 2.0 Poison Magic
 - Level 10.5 Invocations
 - Level 11.2 Evocations


You have 10 spell levels left.
You know the following spells:

 Your Spells              Type           Power        Failure   Level  Hunger
a - Tukima's Dance        Hex            #####...     1%          3    None
b - Dazzling Spray        Conj/Hex       ####....     6%          3    None
c - Confuse               Hex            #####...     1%          3    None
d - Cure Poison           Pois           ###.......   10%         2    None
e - Deflect Missiles      Chrm/Air       #####.....   14%         6    ######.
f - Cause Fear            Hex            #####.....   1%          4    ##.....
r - Repel Missiles        Chrm/Air       #####.       1%          2    None
z - Ensorcelled Hibernat  Hex/Ice        ####..       2%          2    None
B - Blink                 Tloc           N/A          2%          2    None
H - Haste                 Chrm           ######..     6%          6    ######.
P - Summon Butterflies    Summ           ##......     14%         1    None
S - Silence               Hex/Air        #####.....   6%          5    ####...

Comestibles
 G - 6 fruits
 T - 5 bread rations

Dungeon (15/15)            Temple (1/1) D:4            Lair (8/8) D:9
  Swamp (4/4) Lair:5       Spider (4/4) Lair:6        Slime (0/6) Lair:7
    Orc (4/4) D:10            Elf (3/3) Orc:3        Vaults (4/5) D:13
  Crypt (0/3) Vaults:2     Depths (0/5) D:15       

Action                   |  1- 3 |  4- 6 |  7- 9 | 10-12 | 13-15 | 16-18 | 19-21 || total
-------------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------++-------
Melee: Short sword       |   226 |       |       |       |       |       |       ||   226
       Dagger            |    53 |   207 |   713 |  2494 |  2990 |  2591 |  1257 || 10305
       Quick blade       |       |       |       |       |       |   250 |       ||   250
Throw: Stone             |    48 |    20 |     7 |    83 |     3 |       |       ||   161
       Tomahawk          |       |       |       |       |     8 |       |       ||     8
 Cast: Repel Missiles    |       |       |       |     1 |     1 |     6 |     5 ||    13
       Ensorcelled Hiber |       |       |       |       |   128 |   141 |    53 ||   322
       Confuse           |       |       |       |       |    37 |   248 |   189 ||   474
       Dazzling Spray    |       |       |       |       |    24 |   141 |    21 ||   186
       Tukima's Dance    |       |       |       |       |     8 |    52 |    42 ||   102
       Blink             |       |       |       |       |       |     7 |       ||     7
       Cure Poison       |       |       |       |       |       |     5 |     2 ||     7
       Silence           |       |       |       |       |       |       |     4 ||     4
       Deflect Missiles  |       |       |       |       |       |       |     2 ||     2
Invok: Depart the Abyss  |     1 |       |       |       |       |       |       ||     1
       Bend Space        |       |     1 |     1 |       |       |       |       ||     2
       Banish            |       |       |     6 |     9 |     5 |     6 |     3 ||    29
       Corrupt           |       |       |     1 |     1 |     2 |       |       ||     4
 Abil: Evoke Invisibilit |       |       |       |       |     5 |    23 |     1 ||    29
       Turn Visible      |       |       |       |       |     3 |    18 |     1 ||    22
Evoke: Wand              |       |       |     1 |     3 |    15 |     6 |     3 ||    28
       Deck              |       |       |       |       |     2 |     1 |       ||     3
       Fan of gales      |       |       |       |       |       |       |     1 ||     1
  Use: Scroll            |     6 |     5 |     9 |    23 |    20 |     9 |     8 ||    80
       Potion            |       |     6 |       |     1 |     3 |     8 |     2 ||    20
 Stab: Sleeping          |     2 |     5 |    15 |    66 |   174 |   151 |    58 ||   471
       Distracted        |       |     2 |     5 |    11 |    33 |    29 |    13 ||    93
       Invisible         |       |     2 |       |       |    38 |   181 |    19 ||   240
       Confused          |       |       |       |     4 |    35 |   174 |   139 ||   352
  Eat: Royal jelly       |     1 |     1 |       |     3 |       |     4 |       ||     9
       Bread ration      |       |       |     1 |     2 |     5 |     5 |     2 ||    15
       Pizza             |       |       |     2 |     3 |     2 |     3 |       ||    10
       Fruit             |       |       |     1 |     7 |       |     8 |    10 ||    26


[Sar]

So because there's a relatively small chance that a player can miscalculate the cost of invis and regen you think it should be removed outright? I'm sorry, I don't really follow.

[byrel]

According to badwiki, evokable invis is a flat 250 hunger. Your 29 casts add up to 1.2 rations; a noticible amount, but not a lot.
Your banishments are actually more expensive, at 300 satiation, and again 29 casts. That's 1.6 rations.
Corrupt costs 750 hunger, so those 4 casts is another 0.6 rations.
Currently Deflect Missles (or the invis spell when you find it) costs you 225, or slightly less than your evokable invis.

Just for comparison with on of my SpEn:

  Code:

Action                   |  1- 3 |  4- 6 |  7- 9 | 10-12 | 13-15 | 16-18 || total
-------------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------++-------
Melee: Dagger            |    56 |    87 |   158 |   681 |  1450 |   245 ||  2677
 Fire: Blowgun           |       |    11 |    23 |       |       |       ||    34
       Hunting sling     |       |       |       |     5 |       |       ||     5
Throw: Stone             |     5 |     3 |     6 |     6 |    11 |       ||    31
 Cast: Corona            |     3 |       |     1 |       |       |       ||     4
       Ensorcelled Hiber |     9 |    18 |    32 |    84 |   102 |     1 ||   246
       Confuse           |       |     1 |     7 |    97 |   156 |     3 ||   264
       Tukima's Dance    |       |       |       |    16 |    16 |     2 ||    34
       Dazzling Spray    |       |       |       |    12 |    39 |       ||    51
       Regeneration      |       |       |       |       |     8 |       ||     8
       Invisibility      |       |       |       |       |     4 |     4 ||     8
Invok: Call Merchant     |       |       |       |     2 |     4 |     1 ||     7
Evoke: Wand              |       |       |       |       |     5 |       ||     5
  Use: Scroll            |     1 |     6 |     6 |    12 |    29 |     1 ||    55
       Potion            |       |       |     7 |     3 |    11 |     1 ||    22
 Stab: Sleeping          |    18 |    29 |    30 |   105 |   244 |    16 ||   442
       Distracted        |     1 |       |     1 |    13 |    50 |    11 ||    76
       Confused          |       |     1 |     8 |    37 |    66 |     2 ||   114
       Invisible         |       |       |       |     2 |    28 |    23 ||    53
       Fleeing           |       |       |       |       |     1 |       ||     1
  Eat: Pizza             |       |     1 |       |       |       |       ||     1
       Fruit             |       |       |     2 |       |     2 |       ||     4
       Bread ration      |       |       |     1 |     1 |     4 |       ||     6

You're using WAY more food then I am. My supposition is that hitting things to death with a dagger is punished fairly heavily by the food clock. And it's not your regen amulet; that increases food usage by 2 per turn you're below full health, but means you spend less than half the time resting.

Edit: Since this is GDD and not CIP... I would suggest we remove the ability of spriggans to hit things with a shortblade when it isn't a stab, to prevent people from starving due to leaning on tab.
Edit2: The food consumptions at Level 15 are:

• SpAK: 96,300
• SpEn: 43,700

That's a difference of ~9 bread rations. Way more than your skill usage can account for.

[Sandman25]

byrel,

Thank you for the details! Those banishment costs are not listed in the game, I didn't know they are so expensive food-wise. This kind of analysis is one of reasons why hunger should be removed, the analysis is impossible to do without spoilers.
As for hitting monsters with dagger, all monsters in my game have 200% HP so it's kind of hard to kill them. Many of them don't die to tier 1 (sleeping) stabs.

[Rast]

Yeah that might have been worth mentioning in the first post.

[byrel]

As for hitting monsters with dagger, all monsters in my game have 200% HP so it's kind of hard to kill them.

OK, the game should definitely NOT be balanced around your mod on the game. If you starve to death because you cranked HPs up to 200%, you kind of asked for it. I mean, the whole point is a challenge, right?

Also, TIL Gozag>Lugonu when playing with 200% HP monsters on a Sp.

[byrel]

This kind of analysis is one of reasons why hunger should be removed, the analysis is impossible to do without spoilers.

The problem here is one of good data presentations. Naive minmaxers historically come to all the wrong conclusions when naively presented with data in crawl. Arguably, good thinking is one of those skills you need to develop for a roguelike, but still presenting the data well helps them make good decisions.

I think the hunger clock is good in principle. I play Sp a lot, where it's a meaningful limit on high-level casting. It's an interesting choice, and influences my skill build occasionally and my spell build most games. It's a lot less interesting and more annoying on normal characters.

My suggestion for the spoiler thing is that we need to display hunger info consistently. I have problems with the current display:

• Spell hunger is a logarithmic scale. This is both nonobvious and nonuseful. A linear scale would make costs for low-level functions look smaller. Which is good, as I've seen multiple Sp players trying to drop hunger on Invis past 4 hashes. There's no use to that, and if it was on a linear scale, 4 hashes would be 1-2. Much less deceptive.
• Ability costs don't use the same scale
• Item costs (regen particularly) don't use a relevant scale. Displaying hunger on the new linear spell hunger scale, but as "Hunger over 100 turns" would make a lot of sense. TLA would work out to 1 hash, amulet of regen 2, regen spell probably 3.

[Sandman25]

So because there's a relatively small chance that a player can miscalculate the cost of invis and regen you think it should be removed outright? I'm sorry, I don't really follow.

I don't like Sp, hunger has strategic cost for them instead of tactical cost. If I can train spellcasting to reduce spell hunger, I can do nothing to reduce hunger from invis/regen. So yes, let's remove this annoying feature in some way.

[bel]

byrel's analysis seems to ignore that metabolism is raised when under the influence of invis. So invis cost is not just casting or evoking, but also the higher hunger when you are invis.

Anyway, I don't think experience based on 200% hp mod makes much sense. I don't recall running out of food on a Sp, but then I use invis pretty sparingly.

[byrel]

According to badwiki, evokable invis is a flat 250 hunger. Your 29 casts add up to 1.2 rations; a noticible amount, but not a lot.

byrel's analysis seems to ignore that metabolism is raised when under the influence of invis.

True dat. I missed it. On your current character, that adds ~88 hunger to the invis cost if you let it run the full duration. It scales up as duration goes up with Evocations (1 point in evo = 1s longer invis time on average = 5 more food) Which would make those 29 cast, worst case, 1.6 rations. But you did stop a lot of those invises, and some were probably cast with lover Evo. So it'll be 1.4-1.6 rations spent on invis.

[byrel]

I don't like Sp, hunger has strategic cost for them instead of tactical cost. If I can train spellcasting to reduce spell hunger, I can do nothing to reduce hunger from invis/regen.

It's odd that our take on this is so different. I like Sp, because I think hunger is more annoying as a tactical cost than a strategic one.

[Sandman25]

It's odd that our take on this is so different. I like Sp, because I think hunger is more annoying as a tactical cost than a strategic one.

True, I am slightly angry. But my point is "why do we need it as strategic cost at all?"

[byrel]

True, I am slightly angry. But my point is "why do we need it as strategic cost at all?"

Strategic costs force meaningful strategic decisions. They make you choose. Making good strategic decisions is part of the fun of crawl.

You shouldn't be able to play a troll strategically the same as a mummy. Those hunger penalties are there to force different strategic tradeoffs, and basically make those decisions interesting and fun.

[Siegurt]

Also since you effectively extended the amount of damage you need to do to things, and therefore doubled, generally, the strategic food costs associated with combat, it isn't surprising that you are finding yourself encountering them, particularly on a race that has a stricter food clock.

That being said, clearly the problems you are encountering with food have nothing to do with invis or regen, so I suggest that your original suggestion was made from erroneous conclusions. Therefore I suggest (since this is an outwitted interesting conversation) that it move to cyc.

[Sandman25]

Ok, please move the thread to CYC, nobody wants to remove hunger for Sp.

[mps]

I want to remove hunger for Sp!

[byrel]

Just another thought on the reasons for Sp strategic clock. They're arguably the best tactical race in the entire game. Super high speed, lots of stealth, and great aptitudes in all the utility classes and in Spc so you can have a ton of utility spells. And great Evo apt.

In exchange, they're weak strategically. Food clock penalizes heavy casting, limited slots, limited weapons, no shield with most weapons all make your strategic decisions matter a lot. You aren't going to have a spriggan with rF+++ and rC+++ (well, except my current gozagite. But that's ridiculous luck as I found an rF+++ buckler. I STILL need to make strategic decisions for how to deal with high AC monsters though, as I no longer have access to real (non-shortblade basically) weapons when wearing it.)

Just one of the tradeoffs that makes spriggans different. And they certainly come out ahead on the tradeoff.

[and into]

Edit. As suggested I am adding here that I fight 200% HP monsters.

I suspect this is why you are having food (and probably other) problems. Thrice-tougher fights means a lot more running around and a more resting after fights—there are much fewer "popcorn" enemies—and during all those turns you are burning food without exploring new terrain and finding herby foods.


However I do agree with the proposal in the OP, but for different reasons, and I think it should be taken further. Aside from (perhaps) flavor, I don't think there is any good reason for regen, haste, or invis to increase your hunger rate.

So, instead of removing spriggan regen/fast/invis hunger because it is too harsh, how about, remove extra (largely hidden) nutrition costs from regen/fast/invis, because they almost never matter. It is bad for all the reasons that all the other, now removed parts of the food game* were bad: They pretended nutrition is a major strategic element in the game, when it (usually) just isn't. [Note: YMMV when dealing with superbuffed 200% HP monsters]

* Cf. All the different foods that used to take up different slots in your inventory with different eat times and different nutritional values, how chunks used to work, the different types of chunks (brown/white/poisonous/etc.), incidental nutrition from potions, etc. In some parallel universe where nutrition is a major aspect of Crawl—by which I mean, your hunger level is as important as your HP and MP—it might make sense to have features like this. But since we aren't in that universe, it doesn't.

[KittenInMyCerealz]

I have never ever ran out of food with a spriggan.

[tasonir]

I think he meant they have 200% hp, not +200% (thrice-tougher). But that doesn't really change your argument at all.

FWIW, I tend to prefer the spriggan food clock to the normal one. I imagine high level hunger costs could be tweaked somewhat (say spells over level 4 have 20% lower hunger cost, nothing too major) and then everyone moved to the spriggan system (except for obviously different races like trolls/ghouls). Things like evocations hunger and god abilities would need to be looked at as well, and I agree that god abilities just saying "hunger" with no indication of how *much* hunger it causes is rather vague.

Generally speaking I don't find spriggans much worse at casting high level spells; you just need to train spellcasting higher, which they are good at learning. It may delay you another level or two before you can cast them, but that's minor. The real barrier is against doing something like a nearly pure evocations build, with multiple rods, as a primary attack. Or, I suppose, using invis all the time; but I don't tend to use invis much at all, being more of a dungeon bulldozer. Regen is important for that build, although invis isn't. And as previously stated regen doesn't really cost that much food at all, since it shortens your rest time, you save some hunger. I've had concerns over this in the past too though, there is a period somewhere around d:8/lair where you are low on food if you're regenerating, but then you finally come across a food vault and have enough food for the rest of the game. It can make you worry before you find a few vaults, though.

[Sandman25]

deleted as irrelevant

[byrel]

Right, right! This spriggan had trouble with needing overmuch pillar dancing and killing things with the death of 1000 cuts. Also, it's not terribly representative of normal spriggans.