Revert Make AF_HUNGER trigger even when no damage is dealt

[pubby]

Also revert Give death cobs AF_HUNGER.

These change makes me furious. The hungering effects of hungry ghosts has never been interesting, and it's only survived because of flavour reasons. Recently there's been a very strong push to remove hunger completely, but this commit is moving crawl in the opposite direction. These commits can only provide resistance to whatever hunger reform patch gets submitted.

Maybe some of you think hungering attacks isn't so bad? Well, consider this: the harpy monster used to eat your food, but everyone hated it so it was removed. These changes to AF_HUNGER make them just as bad as harpies, if not worse because you have to burn time eating rations every other turn. And that time spent eating during battle is basically as fun and as interesting as paralyzation.

One more thing: AF_HUNGER is really, really, really terrible if you get paralyzed, petrified, or double-teamed by hunger inducing attacks. It's a leads to an extremely underhanded and cheap instant death, and is about as fun as those vaults where quicksilver dragons are hiding behind lava. Thankfully those vaults were removed.

[tabstorm]

From the footv it looks like hungry ghosts and death cobs are now truly impactful. :^)

[Sar]

the reason harpy food eating was hated by me is because bread tossing minigame wasn't fun

[Sandman25]

Running away and returning back with chunks in inventory is not much better than bread tossing IMHO.

[tabstorm]

Running away and returning back with chunks in inventory is not much better than bread tossing IMHO.

Just chunks might not be enough. It seems that hungry ghosts are now extremely dangerous since if you ever have one next to you, you will be locked into eating rations constantly while something else hits you.

That's fine I guess but it's like the following thought process went into this idea:

"You know, hunger results in some pretty tedious gameplay. Plus, it's not very impactful."
"How do we improve this?"
"How about making it more impactful?"

[Sandman25]

Or just make the attacks cause a new status "unable to eat chunks", this will make the monster similar to Mara in the sense that it is usually wise to avoid it all the time.

[mps]

"You know, hunger results in some pretty tedious gameplay. Plus, it's not very impactful."
"How do we improve this?"
"How about making it more impactful?"

There's a remarkable tendency toward ignoring the actual problem, trying to solve a tangentially related one instead, and ending up with something worse than if neither had ever been pointed out.

[Lasty]

I was considering this change before the discussion about hunger began, and it wasn't influenced by the discussion of hunger. Overall I support moving towards food as a strategic clock only, and when steps are taken in that direction I assume hungry ghosts will be removed and death cobs will get some other attack affix, perhaps AF_SLOW, or something new that does something similar to my intention below.

I changed AF_HUNGER because I feel that as long as hungry ghosts exist, they should do something. I changed death cobs to use AF_HUNGER with the intention that it would act like a periodic soft-paralyze: you aren't helpless, but you know you need to take action soon to avoid death. Unlike real paralyze you can respond with emergency powers (blink scroll, teleport, haste, etc) before responding to the situation, but you can't put it off forever. It's also more on-theme than something like AF_SLOW.

It's entirely possible that it's a bad idea and I haven't fully considered how badly it will play in non-wizmode scenarios. If it turns out that it's terrible, I'll happily change it.

[onget]

death cob will be forced to eat myself to you.

[thromnambular]

...if it turns out that it's terrible, I'll happily change it.

It's terrible.

[bel]

While I think the change is weird, I don't see what is wrong with being killed by a hungry ghost while paralyzed. Being paralyzed with a hydra nearby, or many other situations would be death, why not hungry ghosts?

I also don't see what is the connection with harpies. If I understand it, that was changed because you could throw away your food, or something? Anyway, the point is moot after item destruction was removed.

I also don't see what is wrong with hunger being more tactically relevant. That is half the point of having chunks, otherwise you would simply eat permafood and keep enough satiation level to never hunger in battle.

As long as hunger exists, it is fine for it to be meaningful. When food is removed, then hungry ghosts can be too.

[archaeo]

I also don't see what is the connection with harpies. If I understand it, that was changed because you could throw away your food, or something? Anyway, the point is moot after item destruction was removed.

But that's kind of the thing, bel. Item destruction was a tactical annoyance, not a meaningful threat, because the game gave you easy and dumb ways to avoid it; the only way it would meaningfully tank your game is if you were playing very poorly. AF_HUNGER is a similar tactical annoyance; it isn't as easy to avoid, but because of the abundance of food, it's also rarely a threat (unless you get paralyzed ofc).

I also don't see what is wrong with hunger being more tactically relevant. That is half the point of having chunks, otherwise you would simply eat permafood and keep enough satiation level to never hunger in battle.

Because it's silly that optimal play when you see AF_HUNGER is to binge on permafood before fighting. That's the whole problem with "tactical hunger": in order to really make it matter, you'd have to reduce food availability, but it's hard to do that without also starving what were previously considered reasonable playstyles.

[Sar]

Why is it silly? I don't want to defend hungry ghosts right now, but death cobs are fast and exist in Zot, where many other dangerous monsters reside.

[bel]

But that's kind of the thing, bel. Item destruction was a tactical annoyance, not a meaningful threat, because the game gave you easy and dumb ways to avoid it; the only way it would meaningfully tank your game is if you were playing very poorly. AF_HUNGER is a similar tactical annoyance; it isn't as easy to avoid, but because of the abundance of food, it's also rarely a threat (unless you get paralyzed ofc).

Because it's silly that optimal play when you see AF_HUNGER is to binge on permafood before fighting. That's the whole problem with "tactical hunger": in order to really make it matter, you'd have to reduce food availability, but it's hard to do that without also starving what were previously considered reasonable playstyles.

I am often hungry (or just barely satiated) when exploring. If a hungry ghost attacks me in this state, I would have to eat food. If another monster is simultaneously attacking me, this could be relevant.

Unless you are saying that you should always stay close to full or higher with permafood while exploring? I am not sure enough food exists for this to hold in general, because this would also mean you can never eat chunks.

[Bodrick]

AF_HUNGER reduces your nutrition by 1/4 on every hit. You get much more mileage out of permafood once you're down to almost starving (although even then, eating a meat ration just as you hit starving would give you 7 hits before you're starving again, and beef jerky gives you 4 hits).

[duvessa]

The thing is that hungry ghosts and death cobs are both easy to not melee when they start appearing, if there were hungry ghosts on d:1 or death cobs on d:6 then this change might come somewhere in the remote vicinity of making sense.

But worms and boulder beetles and constriction and af_rot are still allowed to exist, so this shouldn't come as a surprise.

[archaeo]

Why is it silly? I don't want to defend hungry ghosts right now, but death cobs are fast and exist in Zot, where many other dangerous monsters reside.

Because "food stunlock" is mostly a cute and roundabout way of accomplishing something Crawl has better ways of handling. That's why I suggested Flash Freeze in that other thread, or why crate suggested AF_SLOW.

I should note for the record that Lasty is a good dev in part because he's interested in exploring how to create cool trade-offs and novel situations. Some of his ideas work better than others, of course, but that's true for everyone.

I am often hungry (or just barely satiated) when exploring. If a hungry ghost attacks me in this state, I would have to eat food. If another monster is simultaneously attacking me, this could be relevant.

Unless you are saying that you should always stay satiated with permafood while exploring? I am not sure enough food exists for this to hold in general, because this would also mean you can never eat chunks.

This is like saying, "I often carry around items that can burn or shatter when exploring. If a fire elemental attacks me in this state, I would lose my items." The tactical answer to this was a lot of tedious stashing, despite the fact that versions of Crawl with item destruction had a hilarious number of consumables since it was assumed players would lose a fair number of them to item destruction. Likewise, there's a hilarious amount of food in the game, and the tactical response to new AF_HUNGER is a lot of tedious eating.

The issue isn't that these enemies are locking down players, that's totally valid. The issue is like the problem we had with item destruction: instead of doing real damage, most of the time, these attacks just force the player to spend irl time doing something annoying.

[Sar]

I just think death cobs having a hunger attack is funny as hell.

[bel]

This is like saying, "I often carry around items that can burn or shatter when exploring. If a fire elemental attacks me in this state, I would lose my items." The tactical answer to this was a lot of tedious stashing, despite the fact that versions of Crawl with item destruction had a hilarious number of consumables since it was assumed players would lose a fair number of them to item destruction. Likewise, there's a hilarious amount of food in the game, and the tactical response to new AF_HUNGER is a lot of tedious eating.

The issue isn't that these enemies are locking down players, that's totally valid. The issue is like the problem we had with item destruction: instead of doing real damage, most of the time, these attacks just force the player to spend irl time doing something annoying.

(edit: rephrase)
I have no idea what is going on here. We are not talking about food reform, we are talking about hungry ghosts and death cobs.

I don't see what you mean by lots of tedious eating. he only change from before is that you might have to eat in battle, which is far from tedious, in fact, it is very dangerous, for reasons mentioned before.

Secondly, I already said I disagree with your premise that there is enough food for this to never matter. As I pointed out, for this to not matter, you should have started with a lot of satiation, typically close to full, or higher. This means that you can never eat chunks. I don't think enough food exists in the game to never eat chunks, for a typical character.

[archaeo]

I mean, if Crawl was Leisure Suit Larry RL instead, that'd be a good rationale for keeping it, Sar. But unfortunately we live in the darkest timeline, where instead of a fun satirical roguelike about sex-crazed white guys, we have a boring old game where a joke that mostly plays well for console players probably isn't worth the annoyance of af_hunger.

I don't see what you mean by lots of tedious eating. he only change from before is that you might have to eat in battle, which is far from tedious, in fact, it is very dangerous, for reasons mentioned before.

I'm saying that the very act of being forced to eat creates tedium for me. It's so tedious that it's making me create tedium for others via endless longwinded posts about how terrible hunger is. The fact that hunger is occasionally dangerous isn't really a great defense.

Secondly, I already said I disagree with your premise that there is enough food for this to never matter. As I pointed out, for this to not matter, you should have started with a lot of satiation, typically close to full, or higher. This means that you can never eat chunks. I don't think enough food exists in the game to never eat chunks, for a typical character.

I think Bodrick pointed out why it isn't necessary to be engorged 100% of the time; there's no reason to not eat chunks. Even if you don't do as duvessa suggests and simply not melee these enemies, the worst thing that can happen is that every few turns, you have to eat. There's so much food in the game that this doesn't matter, and at hungry ghost/death cob depth, it's rare to have 0 ways to reposition in order to avoid fighting them as part of groups.

(edited in response to bel's edit)

[le_nerd]

@bei: yes, there is enough food for melee-only characters in a given game to not eat chunks. It can be a bit dicey before the guarantueed food vault/lair but after having played some gozaq games it certainly is enough even without calling food shops. This is true even if using evokable invisibilty a lot.

[xentronium]

I'm fine with this if there's also a change where starvation just slows you down (like stat-zero) and doesn't kill or paralyze you.

[bel]

I made some of my own calculations after Bodrick's post, which I hadn't read earlier. I think hunger after this change would still never really matter, because you can still eat chunks in many situations.

[bel]

I'm fine with this if there's also a change where starvation just slows you down (like stat-zero) and doesn't kill or paralyze you.

Doesn't stat drain to 0 temporarily paralyze you?

[Sandman25]

Doesn't stat drain to 0 temporarily paralyze you?

Non-positive Int makes you permanently slowed, I wasn't paralyzed even once.

Edit. Apparently I was wrong.

[bel]

I just tested it wizmode. It does.

  Code:

 You feel stupid. You have lost your intelligence.
_c - a -6 ring of intelligence (left claw)
_You can move again.

[kroki]

players keep pestering devs to remove hunger altogether. they get hunger ghosts and death cobs turned up to 11 instead.

its like poetry