Some Ideas on Ways to Fix Beogh

[Tiktacy]

The Issue: Beogh, although being a niche god, has a lot of serious issues that should be adressed(and I will try to cover a few of them in my initial proposal). He really stands out as a black sheep among other gods in the crawl pantheon and not in a good way. Not only is he a god specifically meant for hill orcs(this right here is enough to get a god suggestion yuifed in an instant) but the way he functions is extremely tedious. Having to micro manage your entire legion of orcish allies(most of which are completely useless) is a nightmare and a single slip up or badly times unique can destroy everything you've worked for. I have seen a lot of complaints about him and can think of at least 4 threads in the past that have been made with the intention of completely changing or removing him all together. Granted, there is a number of people who seem to enjoy his worship, but most people will agree that he could really use some attention. I think the concept of having permanent allies as a god power can work and is a nice idea(yred is just fine), it just needs to be fixed in a way that removes some of the issues. More specifically, the tediousness of trying to micromanage all of your orcs as well as the absurdity of having hundreds of useless meatshields stored away in orcish mines.

EDIT: Thank you to both ontoclasm and dpeg for there input on the issue of a Beogh reform. Now that they have shined a little more light on the subject I have decided to make a reform to my original suggestion in a way that complies with how they want to Beogh to exist within the game. For convenience purposes, here is the original proposal as well as there comments on the subject:

Spoiler: show

My Suggestion: In short, my suggestion is to remove the enormous legion of useless meat shields entirely and replace them with a group of 3-5 single orcish followers given to you by beogh himself(not found in the dungeon). This single group of orcs will follow you everywhere and will be constantly gaining experience and becoming more powerful just as the player does. This is only a summary though, there are obviously more things that need to go into this to make it functional:

• Beogh no longer allies orcs within LOS. Instead, he gifts the player with orcish followers as he gains piety.
  
  • If you are a follower of Beogh then a unique orc will always drop a corpse and the corpse will never disappear on its own(see resurrection).
  • Orcish Followers will always drop a corpse and the corpse will never disappear on its own or by monster spells/abilities(see resurrection).
  • When Beogh gifts you with an orc, you are prompted asking whast orc you want: "a - orc warrior b - Orc Wizard c - Orc Priest" and by pressing either a, b, or c you will receive the appropriate ally. Beogh will not offer you this if you have the max number of followers.
  • The strength of these orcs is dependent on your current level, however they will always spawn as one of the 3 basic orcs(Warrior, wizard, priest).
• New Ability: Equip Followers
  
  • Use the ability while standing over a pile of either a Ranged weapon, a melee weapon, or a piece of body armor(or any combination of those 3).
  • You can target any one orcish follower and he will replace what he currently has with that which you were standing over then drop the replaced equipment.
  • This will cost no piety, but cannot be done while in the presence of monsters.
  • Ammo shot from ranged weapons by orcs is infinite and does not land on the ground. It is always unbranded.
• New Ability: Resurrection
  
  • This is the main new ability. At the cost of piety(not sure how much yet) you can resurrect an orc corpse(either of a follower or of a unique) within LOS. It will regain the experience it had during life(and if it is a unique it will replace an orc you currently have and gain its experience).
  • The resurrected orc will come back to life at full health and a flavor text will be triggered thanking the player.
• There is a cap on the number of Orcish followers you can have(3-5 is the number I was thinking), if at any time you would gain another orcish follower, one of your current followers will be replaced.

Much of the mechanics should stay the save for Beogh. The way orcs gain experience and evolve into more powerful orcs will stay the same. Lastly, this idea might still be a little rough around the edges so any attempt to help me refine it into something more usable will be greatly appreciated as will any input(as long as it is constructive).

Spoiler: show

I in no way meant that Beogh shouldn't be changed; I support doing so. But you claimed that one reason for doing so is that he's unpopular, and that's not true.

Since you insist, here's what I think about your suggestion:

It's fine to have a small squad of more powerful orcs. However, assigning them individual equipment is pretty awful. Orcs picking up items was removed for a reason: you can spend ages optimizing precisely what items each orc is wearing, and sometimes you'll want to change them (e.g. to make sure they have on certain resists). It's bad enough keeping track of your own inventory.

Resurrection is fine and has been suggested repeatedly.

Really the big problem with Beogh is that permanent allies -- indeed, really, all allies -- are kind of awful. If you have allies, it is to your direct benefit to control their positioning as best as you can. You want as many allies as possible hitting enemies, and you may want them to prioritize certain enemies. You want enemies hitting your allies instead of you, but not too much, because then the ally will die. You want them to move out of clouds and stand in ways that minimize the effects of enemy spells. But the monster AI in crawl doesn't understand such tactics. So to get the most out of allies, you have to constantly position reposition yourself so as to finagle them into the right place, shout contradictory orders, reset fights, yada yada yada.

Beogh just exacerbates the problem by giving you allies that are simultaneously very fragile, useless except in swarms, and irreplaceable should they die. With summons at least you don't care what happens to them, because they'll die in a few turns either way. Your suggestion addresses this to some degree but doesn't fix it completely -- you'll still want to shepherd your allies to get them to level up, and to save piety on resurrecting them.

I don't feel like discussing Beogh right here, but I will mention what I consider non-negotiables:

• Orcs follow your call and become your allies, simply by seeing you. All orcs.
• Therefore, you amass a huge army of loyal orcs.
• Orcs get experience (can be discussed how), and they get names and grow in ranks.
• There is some form of player-follower interaction, that stops short of equipping every follower all the time.

These desiderata force some negative consequences, that come from "permanent" and "very many" allies. That's part of the Beogh package. If you don't like it, play Yredelmnul, I guess.

Ideas for how to interact with your army better, for how to protect your orcs from overly stupid deaths etc. are welcome. Personally, I am not too fond of the orc gifts, because that puts more responsibility on you, the player (especially if you roleplay) without having asked for this. I think there are better way to obtain reinforcements.

There is an idea of dtsund's Crawl Light that I think could improve Beogh considerably: potions you drink apply to all allies. (Parameters: all potions, or only some, such as !curing, !heal wounds; all orcs or only orcs in LOS.)

My Suggestion: Having reconsidered my original proposal, and after reading a few useful suggestions(special thanks to phloomp) I have come up with a list of changes that should be managable and will hopefully improve gameplay. More specifically, this suggestion is meant to streamline Beoghs abilities in a way that makes him much less tedious as easier to manage.

• New Ability: Ordain
  
  • When using this ability the player will be given the following options: "a - Orc Warrior b - Orc Wizard c - Orc Priest" and will choose the appropriate option. After choosing one of the 3 options they will then be teleported beside you and flavor text will appear saying that they are now disciples, and they will receive a name. If you do not have one of those 3 orcs as a follower, the player will be prompted with the message "You do not have any followers of that type, would you like to ordain an orcish grunt in hopes of training them to become of a higher class?"
  • If you control the maximum number of disciples, you may not use this ability.
  • Disciples will follow you everywhere just as current orcish allies do and will act identical to as they currently are.
  • This ability will not cost piety, but cannot be used in battle. Additionally, the threat counter(if this still exists?) must be very low to avoid being abused mid battle.(other things may need to be put in place in order to avoid abusing this)
• New Ability: Dismiss
  
  • This ability simple dismisses a current disciple into becoming a follower once more. The exp they gained as your follower is then transfered to whomever becomes your next disciple.
  • This ability will not cost piety, but cannot be used in battle.(other things may need to be put in place in order to avoid abusing this)
  • Followers will essentially act as nothing more than orcs who have agreed to accept you as one of their own instead of a disciple who has been chosen to come with you on your quest for the orb of zot. In otherwords, they will not follow you up or down stairs and will not gain experience.
• New Ability: Resurrection
  
  • This is the main new ability. At the cost of piety(not sure how much yet) you can resurrect an orc corpse(either of a disciple or of a unique) within LOS. It will regain the experience it had during life(and if it is a unique it will replace an orc you currently have and gain its experience).
  • The resurrected orc will come back to life at full health and a flavor text will be triggered thanking the player.
• There is a cap on the number of Orcish disciples you can have(3-5 is the number I was thinking), if at any time you would gain another orcish disciple, one of your current disciple will be replaced.
• The player will be notified by Beogh upon killing the unique saying "There powers would be a great asset to my legion, perhaps they deserve a second chance at life?" and the description of resurrection will make it obvious that you can resurrect uniques.
• Changed Ability: Recall
  
  • When using recall, the player will immediately recall all of his disciples. Then, if the player choosing to continue recalling(it can be canceled by either moving or canceling it manualy) then recall will work similar to how it does now. Optionally, removing the effect of summoning non-grunt orcs in order to maintain a supply of much needed powerful allies while still getting the meatshield effect.(in other words, you only recall grunt orcs instead of warrior/wizard/priests after the initial recall of orcish disciples)

Ideas on how to Implement This Change:

Spoiler: show

(if this portion doesn't make sense then just ignore it)

• Create a tag for all orcish allies in which they are identified as either followers or disciples with followers being the default.
• All exp you gain is shared(maybe 25%?) between you and the Disciple tag rather than each individual orc gaining exp based on who killed the enemy.
• All orcs known as disciples will have the same amount of experience even if one has been around longer than the others. The disciple tag itself has its own variable of exp rather than each orc having exp of its own.
• Orcs gain the tag of disciple through the ability "Ordain" and then are brought up to speed. So, if you recruit an orcish warrior but you have already amassed enough exp for it to become a warlord, then it will immediately become a warlord.
• In order to make resurrecting disciples something you want to do, have Beogh occasionally prompt you with a message saying "Beogh would like to gift (NAME OF ORC) with (RANDART WEAPON/BODY ARMOR) replacing his current (CURRENT WEAPON/BODY ARMOR), will this help you spread the name of beogh?" and by choosing yes he will then replace whatever he currently has with that. Items awarded to orcs in this way disappear when they die but are connected with the name of the orc itself so upon resurrection they will regain all items they had.
• Beogh will not offer to replace a randart on an orc unless all other disciples currently have randarts in all 3 slots as well(ranged, melee, and body armor).
• This will simplify the way Beogh functions and will also allow you to remove his extremely gruesome wrath and instead replace it with something like "Beogh thanks you for your contributions to his legion, he has forgiven you for your treason." since the negative effects of abandoning him would be simply losing out on all the exp you used to improve your orcish legion.

[bcadren]

After I told off so hard on Beogh/Yred I wrote this that got far less attention that was also an attempt to fix them: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=18416

My notes on what you said: Micromanaging Equipment seems to be desired by a lot of Beogh players and in fact if I was playing Beogh, I'd probably want it; it technically makes things MORE tedious, but giving you more control isn't bad.

Resurrection/Gifts. Unsure really. Resurrection seems like it would end up making you backtrack a good distance and be all "Where did I leave that corpse?" Not necessarily bad, but potentially more tedious too.

[chequers]

Top tier orcs are unimpressive allies from depths onwards -- would this help there at all?

[Tiktacy]

After I told off so hard on Beogh/Yred I wrote this that got far less attention that was also an attempt to fix them: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=18416

My notes on what you said: Micromanaging Equipment seems to be desired by a lot of Beogh players and in fact if I was playing Beogh, I'd probably want it; it technically makes things MORE tedious, but giving you more control isn't bad.

Resurrection/Gifts. Unsure really. Resurrection seems like it would end up making you backtrack a good distance and be all "Where did I leave that corpse?" Not necessarily bad, but potentially more tedious too.

Resurrection is meant to help eliminate the need to backtrack to acquire a specific orc that is part of your enormous legion incase you lose one of your warlord. You can Ctrl-F to find an orc corpse so finding it won't be an issue.

As for the micromanaging equipment, I completely agree. I like the micromanaging equipment part, it is fun to find a weapon and be like "I can't use it, but my buddy over here sure can!" But as it currently exists it is extremely frustrating to try and equip your followers with new equipment. That's why I added the part about equipping followers as one of his abilities. It would make it much easier to manage and would require a lot less dancing around. Additionally, limiting the number of followers would stop people from equipping every single half decent orc they have with any good weapon they find simply because it is the optimal thing to do in order to win.

[Tiktacy]

Top tier orcs are unimpressive allies from depths onwards -- would this help there at all?

I imagine reworking the way the orcs scale in power over time would be required to make Beogh useful later in the game. Also, an overhaul on his wrath is another example of an important fix that needs to be made. But I made this simply as a smaller step towards fixing him. Most of this shouldn't be too hard to program, but reworking the way they currently "level" is probably going to be quite a challenge.

[ontoclasm]

I have yet to see a single person say a single good word about him,

I won't comment on your suggestion but this is completely incorrect; Beogh is perhaps the most popular and well-known Crawl god overall and I know several people who started playing Crawl specifically and only to play as "Orc Jesus." He's particularly popular on the Asian servers for some reason, and we got a flood of complaints when orcs stopped picking up equipment. I guess some people like spending hours on end carefully dragging orcs over piles of armour and getting them last hits to build up an army.

[Tiktacy]

I have yet to see a single person say a single good word about him,

I won't comment on your suggestion but this is completely incorrect; Beogh is perhaps the most popular and well-known Crawl god overall and I know several people who started playing Crawl specifically and only to play as "Orc Jesus." He's particularly popular on the Asian servers for some reason, and we got a flood of complaints when orcs stopped picking up equipment. I guess some people like spending hours on end carefully dragging orcs over piles of armour and getting them last hits to build up an army.

Clearly people like what Beogh tries to do, but its such a horrible mess in the context of the game that its almost embarrassing that he even exists to begin with.

I had fun when I first tried playing him, but then I realized how much of a mess it was to play optimally with him.

[ontoclasm]

I in no way meant that Beogh shouldn't be changed; I support doing so. But you claimed that one reason for doing so is that he's unpopular, and that's not true.

Since you insist, here's what I think about your suggestion:

It's fine to have a small squad of more powerful orcs. However, assigning them individual equipment is pretty awful. Orcs picking up items was removed for a reason: you can spend ages optimizing precisely what items each orc is wearing, and sometimes you'll want to change them (e.g. to make sure they have on certain resists). It's bad enough keeping track of your own inventory.

Resurrection is fine and has been suggested repeatedly.

Really the big problem with Beogh is that permanent allies -- indeed, really, all allies -- are kind of awful. If you have allies, it is to your direct benefit to control their positioning as best as you can. You want as many allies as possible hitting enemies, and you may want them to prioritize certain enemies. You want enemies hitting your allies instead of you, but not too much, because then the ally will die. You want them to move out of clouds and stand in ways that minimize the effects of enemy spells. But the monster AI in crawl doesn't understand such tactics. So to get the most out of allies, you have to constantly position reposition yourself so as to finagle them into the right place, shout contradictory orders, reset fights, yada yada yada.

Beogh just exacerbates the problem by giving you allies that are simultaneously very fragile, useless except in swarms, and irreplaceable should they die. With summons at least you don't care what happens to them, because they'll die in a few turns either way. Your suggestion addresses this to some degree but doesn't fix it completely -- you'll still want to shepherd your allies to get them to level up, and to save piety on resurrecting them.

[Tiktacy]

I in no way meant that Beogh shouldn't be changed; I support doing so. But you claimed that one reason for doing so is that he's unpopular, and that's not true.

My apologies for the misunderstanding. I was wrong to assume people didn't like him just because he has a lot of flaws.

It's fine to have a small squad of more powerful orcs. However, assigning them individual equipment is pretty awful. Orcs picking up items was removed for a reason: you can spend ages optimizing precisely what items each orc is wearing, and sometimes you'll want to change them (e.g. to make sure they have on certain resists). It's bad enough keeping track of your own inventory.

I think a lot of people(including myself) enjoy the idea of equipping your allies and would love to see it being used in game. However, as beogh currently exists this can't happen(which I, and lots of other people, think is a shame). If you limit the number of allies and make the equipping process simplified then it can exist. If all it takes is standing over an item every few floors, activating an ability, then targeting an orc then it shouldn't be an issue. It might be a little tedious, but nowhere near the nightmare it used to be when you had to dance around piles of items hoping your orc would position himself in the right spot. Also, micromanaging can be fun if its easy to control and turned into something intentional.

Really the big problem with Beogh is that permanent allies -- indeed, really, all allies -- are kind of awful. If you have allies, it is to your direct benefit to control their positioning as best as you can. You want as many allies as possible hitting enemies, and you may want them to prioritize certain enemies. You want enemies hitting your allies instead of you, but not too much, because then the ally will die. You want them to move out of clouds and stand in ways that minimize the effects of enemy spells. But the monster AI in crawl doesn't understand such tactics. So to get the most out of allies, you have to constantly position reposition yourself so as to finagle them into the right place, shout contradictory orders, reset fights, yada yada yada.

The positioning of allies is an important part of the equation, but I actually would enjoy these sorts of tactics if it weren't for the fact that a single wrong move can set you so far back.

Your suggestion addresses this to some degree but doesn't fix it completely -- you'll still want to shepherd your allies to get them to level up, and to save piety on resurrecting them.

I'm not trying to fix the issues with permanent allies, I'm trying to fix the issues with Beogh. Granted, there are a lot of issues behind perma allies themselves, but as you said Beogh goes way overboard.

Things like this can only be dealt with in steps(rather than all at once), so setting a base to build off of is a good first step. Beogh is fundamentally broken in the way he currently functions, but if you remove the silly method of recruiting allies by meeting them and make it more streamlined through god gifts then you can start making improvements more effectively from there. The variables are easier for you to control this way and therefore he becomes easier to fix.

[Sprucery]

My proposal: Beogh does not gift permanent allies. Instead, he gifts a group of orc spirits that come to your help in battle. In battle, the spirits take the physical form of some orc professional (the number, quality and equipment depends probably on your XL and piety). When the physical form dies, or after some time (expiration), the spirit goes back to the spirit plane waiting to be reincarnated.

This would be a mix of Trog's BiA and Yred gifts, but 1) you couldn't ask for allies, Beogh would send the spirits as he saw fit and 2) the allies would not be permanent. Also the equipment minigame would be lost.

[Tiktacy]

My proposal: Beogh does not gift permanent allies. Instead, he gifts a group of orc spirits that come to your help in battle. In battle, the spirits take the physical form of some orc professional (the number, quality and equipment depends probably on your XL and piety). When the physical form dies, or after some time (expiration), the spirit goes back to the spirit plane waiting to be reincarnated.

This would be a mix of Trog's BiA and Yred gifts, but 1) you couldn't ask for allies, Beogh would send the spirits as he saw fit and 2) the allies would not be permanent. Also the equipment minigame would be lost.

Somebody suggested that yesterday and it got yuifed. I would have suggested the same thing if not for the fact that the devs seem to hate this idea.

[dpeg]

Spoilered reply obsolete due to changes in OP.

Spoiler: show

Obviously, starting a design discussion with "the most laughable thing in Crawl" does not lead to be taken serious. So what I say now does not go to the OP (who's a hopeless case, I reckon), but to the rest of the audience:

1. Gods are complimentary content. In other words, you can ignore a god you dislike, just like you can with species or backgrounds. By contrast, monsters or spells are core content -- every player has to take them into account. This does not mean that god/species/background design is intentionally sloppy, but it gives a lot more leeway.

2. If you argue about changing something (rather than removal), try to at least pretend that you like the feature.
Hint: don't do it like the OP.

3. More importantly, try to understand what others could like in it. Beogh has its problems, and there are reasons it's a deity for only one branch and one species. However, the god also carries ample flavour (if not for you, try to understand that this is true for others), and a special playstyles that, lo and behold, a lot of people love.

4. I've won my Beogh game, but I'm far from an expert. However, from what I've read, I am sure that the OP undervalues what Beogh brings to the table. That's not a good starting point if anyone is supposed to take suggestions seriously.

Verdict: joke topic, should be yiufed, in my opinion.

[dpeg]

I have yet to see a single person say a single good word about him,

I won't comment on your suggestion but this is completely incorrect; Beogh is perhaps the most popular and well-known Crawl god overall

Of course it's a pointless question, but I think Xom could be a contender to most well-known Crawl god. Did you know that POWDER features Xom?

[Tiktacy]

Obviously, starting a design discussion with "the most laughable thing in Crawl" does not lead to be taken serious. So what I say now does not go to the OP (who's a hopeless case, I reckon), but to the rest of the audience:

1. Gods are complimentary content. In other words, you can ignore a god you dislike, just like you can with species or backgrounds. By contrast, monsters or spells are core content -- every player has to take them into account. This does not mean that god/species/background design is intentionally sloppy, but it gives a lot more leeway.

2. If you argue about changing something (rather than removal), try to at least pretend that you like the feature.
Hint: don't do it like the OP.

3. More importantly, try to understand what others could like in it. Beogh has its problems, and there are reasons it's a deity for only one branch and one species. However, the god also carries ample flavour (if not for you, try to understand that this is true for others), and a special playstyles that, lo and behold, a lot of people love.

4. I've won my Beogh game, but I'm far from an expert. However, from what I've read, I am sure that the OP undervalues what Beogh brings to the table. That's not a good starting point if anyone is supposed to take suggestions seriously.

Verdict: joke topic, should be yiufed, in my opinion.

Thank you for your constructive criticism on my opinion of Beoghs design(?)

I made some changes to the OP to make it so it comes off a little less strong. My apologies if I had offended you or any other devs by saying he is laughable. My opinion on his design remains the same, but perhaps being a bit more considerate of the dev teams efforts is a good idea in the future.

I would appreciate if you would create some comments on the actual post itself however, as my initial statement was not really meant to be part of the actual proposal but rather an introduction/justification for the proposal itself. That being said, I know a lot of people who have explained why Beogh needs to be changed much better than I did, so I tried not to focus too much attention on the justification since i assumed most people were aware of all the flaws Beogh has.

[phloomp]

I'll butt in, even though I haven't played Beogh much since 0.16 or so. I like resurrection and having a core group of followers, but the current way of getting meatshields is hella amusing and I'd hate to see it go. Also I'm not sure about how the OPs suggestion handles equipment. Would a two-tiered system work? You could have two classes of orcish permanent allies, "followers" and "disciples"

Followers: These would work mostly like the status quo. They don't follow you between levels, can no longer be recalled, and never level up. If you have less than 4 disciples (including dead, not-yet-resurrected ones), you can make one of your followers a disciple ("you impart the secret rites of Beogh to [name of orc]")

Disciples:

• Can be resurrected as in OPs proposal, but you don't need to go to the body to do this. Disciples that dies while polymorphed are unpolymorphed when you do this.
• They follow you everywhere as in OPs proposal.
• They level up like followers in the status quo. Unlike the status quo, this doesn't depend on who struck the last blow. Instead you get half of the experience for all enemies killed by you and your disciples, and the other half is distributed among your disciples. Experience is distributed among disciples in a lumpy way so that they feel distinct from each other. This is an incentive against leaving Beogh - all that experience is gone forever if you do so - and zir wrath is reduced to compensate.
• The recall ability still exists but only recalls your disciples.
• Living disciples can be dismissed ("You send [name of orc] to spread the Word in distant lands"), to make room for someone new.
• Your disciples do not pick up armor, but Beogh may sometimes improve their armor.
• Your disciples do not pick up weapons, but Beogh may improve their weapons. They hold up to three melee weapons and one ranged weapon.
• The player gets to choose which of the three melee weapons the disciples use.

[Tiktacy]

I'll butt in, even though I haven't played Beogh much since 0.16 or so. I like resurrection and having a core group of followers, but the current way of getting meatshields is hella amusing and I'd hate to see it go. Also I'm not sure about how the OPs suggestion handles equipment. Would a two-tiered system work? You could have two classes of orcish permanent allies, "followers" and "disciples"

Followers: These would work mostly like the status quo. They don't follow you between levels, can no longer be recalled, and never level up. If you have less than 4 disciples (including dead, not-yet-resurrected ones), you can make one of your followers a disciple ("you impart the secret rites of Beogh to [name of orc]")

Disciples:

• Can be resurrected as in OPs proposal, but you don't need to go to the body to do this. Disciples that dies while polymorphed are unpolymorphed when you do this.
• They follow you everywhere as in OPs proposal.
• They level up like followers in the status quo. Unlike the status quo, this doesn't depend on who struck the last blow. Instead you get half of the experience for all enemies killed by you and your disciples, and the other half is distributed among your disciples. Experience is distributed among disciples in a lumpy way so that they feel distinct from each other. This is an incentive against leaving Beogh - all that experience is gone forever if you do so - and zir wrath is reduced to compensate.
• The recall ability still exists but only recalls your disciples.
• Living disciples can be dismissed ("You send [name of orc] to spread the Word in distant lands"), to make room for someone new.
• Your disciples do not pick up armor, but Beogh may sometimes improve their armor.
• Your disciples do not pick up weapons, but Beogh may improve their weapons. They hold up to three melee weapons and one ranged weapon.
• The player gets to choose which of the three melee weapons the disciples use.

Flavor wise, I don't really like the meatshield part. It always seemed too un-intentionally silly for my taste, but I think that part isn't quite as important as the core concept.

I like your idea of turning orcs into disciples, its very flavorful and you did a good job elaborating on it.

As for your question about armor and weapons, I had suggested in the OP a way to make upgrading your allies equipment in a way that doesn't distract from the normal flow of the game too much. I know that if I found a nice weapon that I couldn't use, I would really like to let one of my disciples use it. However, for simplicities sake maybe just having the weapons and armor be upgraded in a simpler way(maybe having the god AI take care of it entirely?).

I like your suggestion for replacing wrath with lost experience(although numbers may need to be adjusted to make it more reasonable). It could be reflavored so when you leave it just says "Beogh appreciates your contributions to his cause and forgives you for your treason."

[archaeo]

For what it's worth, now that Tiktacy has edited the OP to be a lot closer to the level of aggrieved frustration we usually let slide in GDD, I'm not hugely inclined to move it to CYC. If another mod feels differently, they're welcome to do so.

[dpeg]

I don't feel like discussing Beogh right here, but I will mention what I consider non-negotiables:

• Orcs follow your call and become your allies, simply by seeing you. All orcs.
• Therefore, you amass a huge army of loyal orcs.
• Orcs get experience (can be discussed how), and they get names and grow in ranks.
• There is some form of player-follower interaction, that stops short of equipping every follower all the time.

These desiderata force some negative consequences, that come from "permanent" and "very many" allies. That's part of the Beogh package. If you don't like it, play Yredelmnul, I guess.

Ideas for how to interact with your army better, for how to protect your orcs from overly stupid deaths etc. are welcome. Personally, I am not too fond of the orc gifts, because that puts more responsibility on you, the player (especially if you roleplay) without having asked for this. I think there are better way to obtain reinforcements.

There is an idea of dtsund's Crawl Light that I think could improve Beogh considerably: potions you drink apply to all allies. (Parameters: all potions, or only some, such as !curing, !heal wounds; all orcs or only orcs in LOS.)

[Tiktacy]

I don't feel like discussing Beogh right here, but I will mention what I consider non-negotiables:

• Orcs follow your call and become your allies, simply by seeing you. All orcs.
• Therefore, you amass a huge army of loyal orcs.
• Orcs get experience (can be discussed how), and they get names and grow in ranks.
• There is some form of player-follower interaction, that stops short of equipping every follower all the time.

These desiderata force some negative consequences, that come from "permanent" and "very many" allies. That's part of the Beogh package. If you don't like it, play Yredelmnul, I guess.

Ideas for how to interact with your army better, for how to protect your orcs from overly stupid deaths etc. are welcome. Personally, I am not too fond of the orc gifts, because that puts more responsibility on you, the player (especially if you roleplay) without having asked for this. I think there are better way to obtain reinforcements.

There is an idea of dtsund's Crawl Light that I think could improve Beogh considerably: potions you drink apply to all allies. (Parameters: all potions, or only some, such as !curing, !heal wounds; all orcs or only orcs in LOS.)

Thank you for your input dpeg.

I'm not sure I agree with those things as non-negotiable's, considering there are some issues with the mentality it creates. But that's not really my decision, so I respect your voice as the dev and will try to build upon it.

i will edit the OP and add some of the input of the devs to the OP in spoilers so we can easily refer back to them in the future. Also, I will try to re-evaluate my original proposal and try to mix together some of the good ideas people have suggested in the thread with consideration to your non-negotiables. Thank you again for your input dpeg, it is greatly appreciated. Also, thank you to the devs in general for having the patience to consider my proposal even if it doesn't quite create the same vision you guys have of Beogh, its a very respectable trait for a dev team.

[dpeg]

This is off-topic, but perhaps still interesting: there could be a connection between the huge appeal of Beogh among South Korean players and the exceptional role of Christianity in that country (for a South Asian nation).

[ydeve]

Korea is Northeast Asia, not South Asia, but that is a possibility.

[johlstei]

I seem to recall PF saying that the south korean beogh thing was just shown to be just a few guys who lived there and really liked beogh.

Either way, that crawl light change sounds really fun to me - haste, berserk, invis, experience, even treeform potions would all be pretty fun with that.

[dpeg]

johlstei: treeforming your orcish army sounds like an event of biblical proportions indeed

[prozacelf]

Top tier orcs are unimpressive allies from depths onwards -- would this help there at all?

As an aside, I can vouch that as of 0.16 (last time I really used Beogh) four orc warlords with crossbows (of varying quality, but ranging from "OK" to "really good") and a random assortment of whatever other orcs you pick up/get gifted will help you get through depths, Zot and the orbrun, as long as your character is melee-oriented and can tank well. While my army was seriously depleted by the time I escaped, I believe I still had two warlords left. By contrast, the game I won with Yred did not have any of my army survive to see the Orb.

Admittedly, both gods have problems with bringing allies into/out of portals, which severely limits their utility in extended, but I think most people are happy to use Beogh as primarily a 3-rune god (and he is far from the only god that is sub-optimal in extended)

[Shard1697]

My #1 problem with Beogh is still that I can't choose specifically what type of orcs are currently following me without going through a lot of hassle. Long story short, I just want a small group of beefy orc warriors with polearms that I'll train into warlords, I don't care about wizards or priests. Best case scenario they're still not warlords, worst case scenario they're annoying because they blink around and die or summon things that get in the way of my warlords getting close and killing things. And no matter what I don't like the clutter of having a bunch of different kinds of orcs, it's a hassle to keep track of what's going on. I just want some dudes with spears.

So I tell my orcs to wait on one floor, go down to another and recall them to try and separate a few warrior orcs from the group... but if the wizard/priest orcs are leveled enough it calls them in first, which is the opposite of what I want. This leads to me doing things like telling my orcs to wait near a staircase, waiting until they wander around until the only ones near me are warrior-type, then tell them to follow and run down the stairs before the others can get close enough to follow me(ditch the nerds, quick!). Or I find vaults that make steam and make my wizards/priests all stand in the steam until they die. And then after I've done this, eventually beogh in his infinite wisdom will "gift" me orc wizards/priests and I'll hit ctrl-s out of frustration.

[Tiktacy]

My #1 problem with Beogh is still that I can't choose specifically what type of orcs are currently following me without going through a lot of hassle. Long story short, I just want a small group of beefy orc warriors with polearms that I'll train into warlords, I don't care about wizards or priests. Best case scenario they're still not warlords, worst case scenario they're annoying because they blink around and die or summon things that get in the way of my warlords getting close and killing things. And no matter what I don't like the clutter of having a bunch of different kinds of orcs, it's a hassle to keep track of what's going on. I just want some dudes with spears.

So I tell my orcs to wait on one floor, go down to another and recall them to try and separate a few warrior orcs from the group... but if the wizard/priest orcs are leveled enough it calls them in first, which is the opposite of what I want. This leads to me doing things like telling my orcs to wait near a staircase, waiting until they wander around until the only ones near me are warrior-type, then tell them to follow and run down the stairs before the others can get close enough to follow me(ditch the nerds, quick!). Or I find vaults that make steam and make my wizards/priests all stand in the steam until they die. And then after I've done this, eventually beogh in his infinite wisdom will "gift" me orc wizards/priests and I'll hit ctrl-s out of frustration.

Thank you for taking the time to type this out. This describes the issues of playing with Beogh better than I ever could. This is easily the most frustrating aspect of managing orcs. I never had that much of an issue with equipment management, the real issue has always been trying to manage what orcs follow you and what orcs don't.

[Shard1697]

If Beogh had an ability which let you sacrifice an orc(maybe to give your other orcs healing based on the HD of the orc you sacrificed? beogh's already flavored as an evil god anyways)it would basically solve all my problems with the god because I could just sacrifice the ones I don't want.

[Tiktacy]

If Beogh had an ability which let you sacrifice an orc(maybe to give your other orcs healing based on the HD of the orc you sacrificed? beogh's already flavored as an evil god anyways)it would basically solve all my problems with the god because I could just sacrifice the ones I don't want.

This is a nice simple way to fix the clutter issue, but it would still be extremely tedious to have to sacrifice an entire branch of orcs.

[Rast]

This is off-topic, but perhaps still interesting: there could be a connection between the huge appeal of Beogh among South Korean players and the exceptional role of Christianity in that country (for a South Asian nation).

I bet it has everything do with Beogh gameplay and very little to do with the Christian flavor.

[kroki]

If Beogh had an ability which let you sacrifice an orc(maybe to give your other orcs healing based on the HD of the orc you sacrificed? beogh's already flavored as an evil god anyways)it would basically solve all my problems with the god because I could just sacrifice the ones I don't want.

why limit it to healing? let it roll from: lesser heal, greater heal, haste, might, berserk. the bigger HD of sacrificied orc, the bigger chance to get better effect on your army

[Shard1697]

This is a nice simple way to fix the clutter issue, but it would still be extremely tedious to have to sacrifice an entire branch of orcs.

You wouldn't need to sacrifice all of orc, you'd tell them to wait, recall a few, and sacrifice any of those few who you didn't want so you could level up the ones you did.

why limit it to healing?

Simplicity's sake, mostly.

[Kaelii]

why limit it to healing? let it roll from: lesser heal, greater heal, haste, might, berserk. the bigger HD of sacrificied orc, the bigger chance to get better effect on your army

While access to additional effects would be neat, it could also be frustrating depending on implementation.
Sacrifice an orc warrior hoping for healing and instead it zerks your orcs, making them more suicidal and noisy, and causing a problem if the fight lasts longer than the zerk duration. If the effects are all sufficiently good it might not matter, but I feel like getting non-healing results when you are trying to save a high level orc might cause MORE frustration when playing Beogh. "I lost an orc warlord because of RNG" will probably come up when your action to save orc warlord was to sac an orc for XX% chance to heal it and you instead rolled (might, haste, zerk), instead of say swapping position with the orc and having projectile miss you and hit the orc. Most people will probably say that if their first orc warlord gets banished by random mook with distortion weapon #1 on the first hit, but introducing a variety of result

Making it a potion petition style sacrifice would reduce randomness and let the player pick effects, but might not properly trade in higher tier orcs?

Spoiler: show

You have sacrificed: Orc.
A: minor healing
B: swiftness
C: temporary slaying +1
You have sacrificed Beorgh, Orc Warlord
A: Greater Healing, Might
B: Healing, Haste, Might
C: Lesser Healing, Resistance, Swiftness, Temporary Slaying +3

Alternatively generating a set of known rewards and asking for specific types of orc sacrifices (possibly generated semi-randomly?) more like ru's sacrifice, where it would tell you what to give up and the returns would be known when you choose to accept the sacrifice or not?

Spoiler: show

Request Healing: Sacrifice two orc Priests, an Orc Warrior, Five Orcs
Request Greater Healing: Sacrifice one Orc High Priest, one orc Priest, an orc Wizard, Five Orcs.
Request Might: Sacrifice two Orc Warriors, ten Orcs
Request Zerk: Sacrifice one Orc Knight, one Orc Priest, one Orc Warrior, Five Orcs

Making results of sacrifices dependent on the type of orc? Might work -- could encourage players to keep a variety of orcs around more.

Spoiler: show

Priest can be sacrificed to lesser heal, high priest for a greater healing, named priest for a full heal(or huge heal). Wizard hastes, Sorcerer grants longer haste and a random non-distortion/holy/antimagic/chaos brand to unbranded attacks?, named warlock grants a very long haste, random brand, and increases all weapon enchantments or something. Warrior grants might, Knight grants might and something, Warlord grants a zerk, named removes the slow after zerking. Generic orcs grant a random lesser version of (Warrior, Priest, Wizard).

[Shard1697]

Alternatively generating a set of known rewards and asking for specific types of orc sacrifices (possibly generated semi-randomly?) more like ru's sacrifice, where it would tell you what to give up and the returns would be known when you choose to accept the sacrifice or not?

Spoiler: show

Request Healing: Sacrifice two orc Priests, an Orc Warrior, Five Orcs
Request Greater Healing: Sacrifice one Orc High Priest, one orc Priest, an orc Wizard, Five Orcs.
Request Might: Sacrifice two Orc Warriors, ten Orcs
Request Zerk: Sacrifice one Orc Knight, one Orc Priest, one Orc Warrior, Five Orcs

Making results of sacrifices dependent on the type of orc? Might work -- could encourage players to keep a variety of orcs around more.

Spoiler: show

Priest can be sacrificed to lesser heal, high priest for a greater healing, named priest for a full heal(or huge heal). Wizard hastes, Sorcerer grants longer haste and a random non-distortion/holy/antimagic/chaos brand to unbranded attacks?, named warlock grants a very long haste, random brand, and increases all weapon enchantments or something. Warrior grants might, Knight grants might and something, Warlord grants a zerk, named removes the slow after zerking. Generic orcs grant a random lesser version of (Warrior, Priest, Wizard).

I gotta repeat, the reason I want this in the first place is not to play a buff minigame with my orcs or make different orcs viable, but to let me kill the orcs I don't want so I don't have to deal with them anymore. I want the exact opposite of being encouraged to keep around a variety of orcs.

I just want it to be less of a pain in the ass to roll around with like, 6 orcs max with polearms that I train into warlords. As it is when I get a small band of melee orcs rolling, it feels like a punishment when I round a corner to find a mixed group of orcs who start following me because it means I need to go through the hassle of separating out the ones I want again.