Snake Pit

[MrPlanck]

Snake Pit is a mess. In addition to the theme poison spitting and constricting, there are archers (some of whom have portal projectile), salamanders with fire attacks, shock serpents with elec attack, guardians who teleport mobs around you, -pR status, a high proportion of reach attacks, and mana vipers. While not entirely necessary, resists that help in snake include: poison, electricity, rmsl, fire. And blink is helpful to escape constrict. Furthermore, while naga are slow, there are many high speed snakes, and mages and greater naga have haste spell. This is almost abyss level chaos if you ask me.

I realize that many of these are to counter naga slow speed. But why not just give all naga normal speed in the zone (due to some nature of the surfaces) and eliminate some of the nonsense (such as shock serpents and guardians teleporting)?

It's not that all of this nonsense makes it too hard, it just always strikes me as being thrown together haphazardly to overcome limitations imposed by low movement speed.

Thoughts?

[bel]

Though I like Snake as it is, I like this proposal. Snake has a very large variety of monsters. Some could be eliminated.

Nagas should be given speed 10 independently of the other things proposed. One could say something like "Monster Nagas have adapted to the dungeon" or something similar to how monster OoD is different from player OoD.
I don't really know why Shock Serpents exist. Very weird gimmick, which is not used anywhere else.
Guardian serpents, perhaps they are ok (though I dread meeting them). Even with normal speed Nagas, the basic idea of "blink a lot of constricting monsters around you" can make sense.
Salamanders are weird, and I don't know why they exist in Snake. I don't see them adding much, except making rF a bit more helpful.

[johlstei]

I'd wager that the idea is partially to (almost) ensure that there is some stuff there that you don't resist. This creates variety because which monsters are most threatening will vary from run to run. I think that, in general, it's good to make the player fight things they are not resistant to.

Speed 10 nagas would make it a lot harder, but it's fine with me. I'd be interested in trying out that part of the change in isolation.

[Sprucery]

Shock serpents should go, but otherwise I think Snake is pretty good. All other things listed in the OP are good and make the branch interesting and reasonably challenging for some combos.

Even shock serpents could stay if they just had an electric attack. But the explosion on hit is not a good mechanic imho (especially when it doesn't hurt other enemies).

[bcadren]

Even shock serpents could stay if they just had an electric attack. But the explosion on hit is not a good mechanic imho (especially when it doesn't hurt other enemies).

This. So much this. Shock Serpents are like Mummy Death Curse of direct damage...on every hit. UNLESS miraculously you manage to keep them away.

Additionally I don't like Naga Sharpshooters having...well hyper-accurate smite-targeted attacks. Woe unto any EV character or summoner that sees a pack of 3+. All the various stuff really makes Snake edge out Shoals as hardest lair branch on a lot of characters. Both have a lot of ranged attacks; both have large open areas where it's easy to get surrounded, but only snake also has poison on EVERYTHING and a chance of your Poison resist getting nullified, etc.

[all before]

I don't understand what exactly you're criticizing about Snake. Is it that there is too high a variety of threats? If so, why is that a bad thing?

[bcadren]

I'd also like to add this to the discussion.

cKiller:

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4162 games for * (place=snake recent): 762x a naga sharpshooter, 551x a shock serpent, 437x a greater naga, 293x a naga warrior, 267x Vashnia, 186x an anaconda, 151x a black mamba, 134x a guardian serpent, 132x a salamander, 126x a naga ritualist, 122x a naga mage, 84x Aizul, 79x quitting, 70x a mana viper, 65x Jorgrun, 63x a naga, 62x Nikola, 48x a salamander mystic, 44x a player ghost...

iKiller:

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4162 games for * (place=snake recent): 573x a naga sharpshooter, 545x a shock serpent, 450x Vashnia, 437x a greater naga, 287x a naga warrior, 185x an anaconda, 153x a black mamba, 132x a guardian serpent, 127x a salamander, 126x a naga ritualist, 120x a naga mage, 110x, 84x Aizul, 71x a mana viper, 65x Jorgrun, 64x a naga, 62x Nikola, 50x Asterion, 48x a salamander mystic...

[MrPlanck]

I don't understand what exactly you're criticizing about Snake.

Too many gimmicks to deal with slow movement speed.

ps: It's not the difficulty (more difficult is more good), it's the messiness of the branch. Give naga speed 10 (at least in pits), and remove a few gimmicks (esp shock serpent, maybe the roaming salamanders), and I wonder how it would work.

[ajon]

what is cKiller and iKiller?

[bcadren]

what is cKiller and iKiller?

cKiller caused fatal damage. iKiller summoned the thing that caused fatal damage, caused the thing that caused fatal damage to be spawned or caused the fatal damage.

Examples: You die from damage from an Orc Warlord summoned by a Boggart: Boggart is iKiller, Orc Warlord is cKiller. You die from damage from a Naga Sharpshooter that was placed as part of Vashnia's Band: Vashia is iKiller, Naga Sharpshooter is cKiller.

[grisamentum]

I'd also like to add this to the discussion.

Yeah, the Vashnia band is absurdly dangerous. And until you find it, you have to assume every random Sharpshooter is the lead monster in the band.

[all before]

I agree that nagas shouldn't be slow because slow monsters shouldn't exist. "Messy" isn't a good criticism of a branch imo; D and V are the best branches and both have a high variety of threats. As for monsters being gimmicky, maybe, but that should be taken on a case-by-case basis. I like shock serpents because they're the hydra/shrike/warden equivalent for the branch--a top-tier enemy that forces characters to find alternative ways to kill or avoid. Maybe they're too difficult at the moment and should be tweaked in some way to balance, but I like their existence.

[Sar]

I like nagas being slow, they have things to compensate for that (blink allies encircling, poison spit, constrict, spells, arrows).

[bcadren]

I like nagas being slow, they have things to compensate for that (blink allies encircling, poison spit, constrict, spells, arrows).

I agree I'm not in the camp that thinks slow is bad. Actually I kind of think it's foolish to think just because they are slow; that means you can easily escape from (foo). Yes you can walk away more easily; but you'll walk right into something else [less likely if you go straight back to the stairs, but still possible] also the sheer numbers in snake make it easy to get surrounded WITHOUT teleport encircling. I will say I think in snake, because there are so many mitigating factors; the slowness is rarely noticeable and not-interesting. When slowness WOULD be interesting is more like thin hallways where you are likely to get stuck between two monsters and thus would have to use a lot of teleportation to avoid getting overwhelmed, etc.

[duvessa]

I like nagas being slow, they have things to compensate for that (blink allies encircling, poison spit, constrict, spells, arrows).

I don't like nagas being slow, because it means that none of that stuff fucking matters.

[Sprucery]

Of course that stuff matters.

[Sar]

I don't like nagas being slow, because it means that none of that stuff fucking matters.

Well none of the stuff past D:5-7 fucking matters, what's the problem with nagas specifically?

[Kolbur]

I don't understand what exactly you're criticizing about Snake.

Too many gimmicks to deal with slow movement speed.

ps: It's not the difficulty (more difficult is more good), it's the messiness of the branch. Give naga speed 10 (at least in pits), and remove a few gimmicks (esp shock serpent, maybe the roaming salamanders), and I wonder how it would work.

What you call "gimmicks" I call well designed and a nice change from all the other branches. You call it messy but you don't actually explain what that's even supposed to mean. It just sounds as if you find the variation bad for some reason.
Essentially you are suggesting to put the Snake monsters in the same boring soup that is 80% of all crawl already.
The only thing that I could agree is that Shock Serpents are a bit weird. Mostly because their explosions don't harm other monsters.

[TeshiAlair]

I think it could be straightened up a bit by making it more vault/pack based than the random assortment, and it would also make it more distinct.

[duvessa]

I don't like nagas being slow, because it means that none of that stuff fucking matters.

Well none of the stuff past D:5-7 fucking matters, what's the problem with nagas specifically?

I think it's pretty awful to give a monster poison spit, constrict, spells, arrows and then make it so that it can't catch you to use any of them.

[Sar]

So when you play, like, a melee character, you kite each individual naga to safe area? Otherwise you are going to get hit with some of the ranged attacks I mentioned, and constrict makes it harder to move away from a battle gone wrong.

[Sprucery]

So when you play, like, a melee character, you kite each individual naga to safe area? Otherwise you are going to get hit with some of the ranged attacks I mentioned, and constrict makes it harder to move away from a battle gone wrong.

And what do you do when you spot a guardian serpent? When you are suddenly surrounded, it doesn't matter if some of the monsters are slow.

Wrt shock serpents again, I wouldn't mind if there was just a unique shock serpent with the explosion mechanic. Uniques are allowed to be annoying imho.

[bcadren]

Mod edit: Removed this post containing no reasoning and quoting individual player online stats.

[duvessa]

So when you play, like, a melee character, you kite each individual naga to safe area? Otherwise you are going to get hit with some of the ranged attacks I mentioned, and constrict makes it harder to move away from a battle gone wrong.

You do not understand constriction if you think it makes it harder to walk away from melee. It makes it easier to walk away from melee. And yes, you can easily kite each individual naga to a safe area if you need to. I have never made a character that sucks enough to need it against regular nagas but I do it against naga sharpshooters etc.

Mod edit: Removed this post containing no reasoning and quoting individual player online stats.

I don't recall ever claiming that I'm a good player, that I've never died in snake, or that I play well. In fact even with my shitty play you might notice that most of those were deliberate suicides, and only two were actually to a slow monster (the naga warrior one which was just my usual shitty play, you can watch it if you find it inexplicable, and the vashnia one which was a suicide). Anyway, I'll talk to the server admins and see if I can get my cao and cszo accounts deleted, since that's a prerequisite for posting on tavern now.

[bel]

I see the ranged attacks/constriction given to Nagas as compensation for slow movement speed, not the other way around.

The basic premise is a monster with slow movement speed, and then you add stuff to make it more interesting. Of course, slow movement monsters do not work well, so the abilities are not too good.

[MrPlanck]

What you call "gimmicks" I call well designed and a nice change from all the other branches. You call it messy but you don't actually explain what that's even supposed to mean. It just sounds as if you find the variation bad for some reason.
Essentially you are suggesting to put the Snake monsters in the same boring soup that is 80% of all crawl already.
The only thing that I could agree is that Shock Serpents are a bit weird. Mostly because their explosions don't harm other monsters.

It's like old Windows built on top of dos kind of messy. The foundation is weak. In the case of Pit, everything that has been added to make the branch harder is limited thematically by the initial weakness of slow movement speed. As a consequence, there are a huge assortment of different kinds of crap going on in that branch to compensate. It is a hodgepodge mishmash, the denizens can do all sorts of things necessary to compensate for slow movement speed, making slow movement speed less relevant. If it is less relevant because of the hodgepodge, then why keep it? As a comparison, Vaults are a work of art, built around the guard/warden..etc theme which is a solid foundation.

Give naga 10 speed *in pit* and remove a few of the annoying things like shock serpents doing recoil damage and [some other annoying thing], and I think it would be more challenging and fun.

[Sar]

well I guess I don't understand constriction then

actually I remember reading something about how it works but I forgot, sorry

maybe it should be reworked to make running away harder?

Edit:

The foundation is weak. In the case of Pit, everything that has been added to make the branch harder is limited thematically by the initial weakness of slow movement speed.

Snakes, unlike nagas, are actually fast. Shock serpents are fast. Anacondas are fast.

[MrPlanck]

well I guess I don't understand constriction then

actually I remember reading something about how it works but I forgot, sorry

maybe it should be reworked to make running away harder?

Perhaps the idea is that, given the threat of constriction, it is safer to dig a kill hole and engage 1:1 than risk getting adjacent to any naga that come in groups. Given slow movement speed, it is usually trivial to dig a kill hole and fight safely before they get into constriction range.

[johlstei]

Do you automatically get a space between you and the monster if you break constriction? That's the only way it could make it easier to run away.

[Sar]

I thought there were some quirks with monster energy and constrict? I mean killholes are kind of ~problematic~ but that has nothing to do with constrict and everything to do with killholes.

[duvessa]

Constriction makes monsters easier to escape because breaking constriction stuns the monster. I am not sure what the motivation for this feature is, but it has always been a part of constriction's design and implementation. If constriction were overhauled to not behave like constriction currently behaves, like if you made it have LOS range and didn't stun the monster upon breaking it, then sure, it would make non-anaconda monsters more dangerous instead of less. But generally when talking about Crawl's balance I think of how features actually work, not of how they work in an imaginary universe where crawl is already perfectly balanced.

[Sprucery]

If the purpose is just to make sure that the character isn't immediately re-constricted, a short-term constriction immunity would be better. Or just make constriction cause exhaustion for a couple of turns.

[bcadren]

Online statistics for whatever that's worth do show Snake as the second deadliest lair branch after Shoals and my own experience supports this. Sure it's easier to walk away from things and leave the branch, but the creatures in Snake are the bulkiest of anything around this depth and the large open areas make any kind of position game nearly impossible. If anything the branch needs considerable nerfs, not buffs. Naga has this theme going that everything hits REALLY hard for it's HD and is WAY bulkier than other things at this depth that's supposed to be counterbalanced by them being slow moving. The slow moving sometimes counterbalances this, with careful play and never getting a random teleport or coming down a staircase directly into Vashnia's band, etc. but in practice in my own games; it's always been one of the hardest, if not the hardest lair branch.

Let's actually fairly compare the creatures:

• Nagas themselves are really nothing to worry about. Before adding in weapon they are basically a slower, bulkier yak with constriction. Salamanders are basically fire yaks.

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  naga (N) | Spd: 10 (move: 140%) | HD: 5 | HP: 21-36 | AC/EV: 6/10 | Dam: 17, 3(constrict) | weapons, items, doors, see invisible | Res: magic(40), poison | Chunks: noxious | XP: 162 | Sp: spit poison (d10) [!AM, !sil, breath] | Sz: Large | Int: human.

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  salamander (N) | Spd: 10 (move: 140%) | HD: 8 | HP: 48-81 | AC/EV: 5/7 | Dam: 17(fire:8-15) | weapons, items, doors, fighter | Res: magic(40), fire+++ | Vul: cold | XP: 521 | Sz: Medium | Int: human.

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  yak (Y) | Spd: 10 | HD: 7 | HP: 29-50 | AC/EV: 4/7 | Dam: 18 | Res: magic(20) | XP: 203 | Sz: Large | Int: animal

• Naga Warriors are similarly bulky, hit almost as hard and are far more numerous than Orc Warlords. Pure (Cheibriados) numbers show a little bit in the warlord's favor; but naga warrior's default equipment having a chance for large shields makes them much harder to take out with ranged weapons in practice. Additionally they are on similar tier to some of the highest power melee enemies in similarly leveled branches; despite being common and considered weaker because of their slowness.

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  naga warrior (N) | Spd: 10 (move: 140%) | HD: 10 | HP: 95-106 | AC/EV: 6/9 | Dam: 28, 6(constrict) | weapons, items, doors, fighter, see invisible | Res: magic(80), poison | Chunks: noxious | XP: 977 | Sp: spit poison (d16) [!AM, !sil, breath] | Sz: Large | Int: human.

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  orc warlord (o) | Spd: 10 | HD: 15 | HP: 91-137 | AC/EV: 12/7 | Dam: 32 | weapons, items, doors, fighter | Res: magic(60) | XP: 1675 | Sp: battlecry [!AM] | Sz: Medium | Int: human.

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  emperor scorpion (s) | Spd: 10 | HD: 14 | HP: 102-135 | AC/EV: 20/12 | Dam: 30(poison:28-56), 15(claw), 15(claw) | Res: magic(60), poison, drown | Chunks: noxious | XP: 1625 |Sz: Giant | Int: brainless.

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  merfolk impaler (m) | Spd: 10 (swim: 60%; atk: 60%) | HD: 12 | HP: 69-88 | AC/EV: 3/18 | Dam: 25 | weapons, items, doors, amphibious | Res: magic(40), drown | XP: 1079 | Sz: Medium | Int: human.

• Similar note with Naga Sharpshooters and Deep Elf Master Archers. In this case; the Deep Elf does clearly win (because of Missile 50%), but the pack size of Nagas is far higher. The closest exact equivalent to a Sharpshooter is merfolk javelineer. Weapon base damage Arbalest vs. Long Bow vs. Javelin; I believe swings this a bit more in the naga's favour as Arb has the highest base dam of those.

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  naga sharpshooter (N) | Spd: 10 (move: 140%) | HD: 9 | HP: 61-81 | AC/EV: 6/10 | Dam: 17, 5(constrict) | weapons, items, doors, master archer, spellcaster, see invisible | Res: magic(80), poison | Chunks: noxious | XP: 830 | Sp: spit poison (d14) [!AM, !sil, breath], portal projectile | Sz: Large | Int: human.

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  deep elf master archer (e) | Spd: 10 (msl: 50%) | HD: 15 | HP: 68-84 | AC/EV: 3/15 | Dam: 25 | weapons, items, doors, master archer | Res: magic(100) | XP: 2516 | Sz: Medium | Int: human.

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  satyr (c) | Spd: 10 | HD: 12 | HP: 53-80 | AC/EV: 2/12 | Dam: 25 | items, doors, master archer, spellcaster | Res: magic(40) | XP: 893 | Sp: battlecry [!AM], cause fear, sleep | Sz: Medium | Int: human.

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  merfolk javelineer (m) | Spd: 10 (swim: 60%) | HD: 13 | HP: 67-84 | AC/EV: 3/14 | Dam: 17 | weapons, items, doors, master archer, amphibious | Res: magic(60), drown | XP: 1125 | Sz: Medium | Int: human.

• As for the weirder stuff. Shock Serpents don't look bad by numbers. A little deadly, but not as bad as they actually are. This is because, the Cheibriados numbers don't show the "discharge on hit" effect you suffer from attempting to melee the things. In pure numbers they look like someone just buffed a sixfirhy with a spell, more HD and stronger melee; which is fine, sixfirhy are really rare (while they are actually still deadly anyways) and a monster with similar power and mechanics wouldn't feel like an overlap with a creature you're unlikely to see. I believe these are about the deadliest things in snake for two reasons:
  • It's nearly impossible to escape; without teleporting into what could be a much worse situation.
  • The discharge on hit effect; which can both be self murder (max to 0 HP on some characters in 3-4 hits); and makes so much noise it draws half the floor to you.

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  shock serpent (S) | Spd: 15 | HD: 10 | HP: 41-69 | AC/EV: 2/15 | Dam: 20(elec:10-14) | cold-blooded | Res: magic(40), elec+++ | XP: 825 | Sp: b.electrical (3d13) [!AM, !sil] | Sz: Medium | Int: animal.

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  sixfirhy (4) | Spd: 40 (move: 60%) | HD: 7 | HP: 25-50 | AC/EV: 2/20 | Dam: 15(elec:7-9) | demonic, doors | Res: magic(60), rot, neg+++, torm | Vul: holy++ | XP: 503 | Sz: little | Int: human.

• Guardian Serpents have a weird honour of being pretty harmless if you find one alone, but extremely deadly if it spawns with a group. They are most comparable in melee strength to wolf spiders; but their blink encircling can be a near instant kill to some characters, when there are naga warriors around; especially those that lack a source of blinking. I personally don't think encircling is a good design because of just how extremely deadly it can be in some circumstances. It's far worse in vaults than it is in snake, but it can easily be the end of an EV character once surrounded and one Naga Warrior has a good constrict. Even a teleport has a chance of failing with enough things constricting. Anacondas actually are on a similar, tier; though they have no spells and have a weakened main melee, with a constrict instead.

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  guardian serpent (S) | Spd: 15 | HD: 8 | HP: 31-56 | AC/EV: 6/14 | Dam: 26 | spellcaster, see invisible | Res: magic(60), poison | Chunks: mutagenic | XP: 455 | Sp: b.venom (3d13),  slow, blink allies encircling | Sz: Large | Int: human.

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  wolf spider (s) | Spd: 15 | HD: 11 | HP: 45-65 | AC/EV: 3/10 | Dam: 25, 15(poison:22-44) | web sense | Res: magic(20) | Vul: poison | Chunks: noxious | XP: 565 | Sz: Medium | Int:  brainless.

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  anaconda (S) | Spd: 18 | HD: 11 | HP: 49-74 | AC/EV: 4/16 | Dam: 6(constrict), 20 | amphibious, cold-blooded | Res: magic(40), drown | XP: 923 | Sz: Large | Int: animal.

• Greater Nagas get the most actual kills in snake (according to Sequell). They don't hit quite as hard as Naga Warriors, but are self-hasting and their P.Arrow hits as hard as a Deep Elf Annihilators (exactly).

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  greater naga (N) | Spd: 10 (move: 140%) | HD: 15 | HP: 66-99 | AC/EV: 8/9 | Dam: 27, 7(constrict) | weapons, items, doors, fighter, spellcaster, see invisible | Res: magic(140), poison | Chunks: noxious | XP: 1903 | Sp: spit poison (d22) [!AM, !sil, breath], b.venom (3d19), mystic blast (3d19), haste, poison arrow (3d22), teleport other, teleport self [emergency] | Sz: Large | Int: human.

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  deep elf annihilator (e) | Spd: 10 | HD: 15 | HP: 57-79 | AC/EV: 1/12 | Dam: 12 | weapons, items, doors, spellcaster, see invisible | Res: magic(120) | XP: 1264 | Sp: b.lightning (3d20), crystal spear (3d34), blink, iron shot (3d28), poison arrow (3d22) | Sz: Medium | Int: human.

• The remaining creatures in snake aren't as deadly as the aforementioned (excluding basic Naga/Salamander of course). I will note that a Salamander Mystic's Ignite Poison can pretty much kill you in one hit if you let yourself walk around poisoned, but otherwise this group isn't generally as deadly as the others. Not to say they are harmless; just don't hit as hard and aren't as bulky.

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  naga mage (N) | Spd: 10 (move: 140%) | HD: 7 | HP: 28-47 | AC/EV: 6/10 | Dam: 17, 4(constrict) | weapons, items, doors, spellcaster, see invisible | Res: magic(60), poison | Chunks: noxious | XP: 443 | Sp: spit poison (d12) [!AM, !sil, breath], b.venom (3d12), mystic blast (3d13), haste, poison arrow (3d14), teleport other, teleport self [emergency] | Sz: Large | Int: human.

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  salamander mystic (N) | Spd: 10 (move: 140%) | HD: 10 | HP: 50-81 | AC/EV: 7/7 | Dam: 10(fire:10-19) | weapons, items, doors, spellcaster | Res: magic(60), fire+++ | Vul: cold | XP: 771 | Sp: mystic blast (3d15), b.magma (3d18), haste other, localized ignite poison | Sz: Medium | Int: human.

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  black mamba (S) | Spd: 18 | HD: 7 | HP: 29-50 | AC/EV: 4/15 | Dam: 20(poison:14-28) | cold-blooded | Res: magic(20), poison | Chunks: noxious | XP: 455 | Sz: Medium | Int: animal.

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  naga ritualist (N) | Spd: 10 (move: 140%) | HD: 8 | HP: 50-71 | AC/EV: 8/9 | Dam: 14, 4(constrict) | weapons, items, doors, spellcaster, see invisible | Res: magic(60), poison | Chunks: noxious | XP: 687 | Sp: spit poison (d13) [!AM, !sil, breath], force lance (3d12), toxic radiance, virulence | Sz: Large | Int: human.

[sanka]

But why not just give all naga normal speed in the zone (due to some nature of the surfaces) and eliminate some of the nonsense (such as shock serpents and guardians teleporting)?

Maybe instead of changing naga's speed to normal in the pits it would be better to slow everybody's movement speed, like having a permamnent -Swift status or something in the pits.

[dowan]

All this talk about constriction making it easier to escape misses the fact that sometimes when you try to move away from the constrictor, you fail to move. Or that it can prevent you from going upstairs. I'm surely not the first player ever to have an anaconda keep them constricted in a bad situation, preventing escape. I'd go so far as to say some posters are being intellectually dishonest about it...

I think the theorycraft version of snake where you just walk into the rune vault, snag the rune, and walk out while a few nagas pathetically slither after you slowly misses some of the dynamics that makes the real snake pit quite dangerous. I'd say naga's slow speed is what keeps the difficulty where it should be, and increasing naga speed in snake would be totally unnecessary, especially considering that snake is already harder than spider(Even though spider is full of fast monsters, imagine that!)

[Sandman25]

Also stun does not really help unless you are Na: you can walk away from Naga Warriors etc. as normal character anyway and cannot walk away from Anacondas even with stun. Are there constrictors with normal speed in Snake?

[kuniqs]

Either remove shock serpents, make shock serpents harm enemies or remove fire magic from Snake. Compared to recommended survival pack for other branches (cold & poison for Shoals, poison for Spider), Snake (elec, fire, poison, MR, blink to escape encirclement, rMis for sharpshooters, potions of curing for ritualists...) seems too much of a good thing.

And making nagas move at normal speed is just bending over in the prison shower for Cheibros.