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Early game wand of polymorph

PostPosted: Thursday, 23rd June 2011, 00:49
by mrbobbyg
Is it just me, or does a run in with a unique with a wand of poly pretty much just guarantee a quit?

It's just not worth going on when your level 3 character is now hungry and slow after fighting Jessica.

Do early characters have to have a chance of genning with that wand? I'd rather deal with a lightning bolt. At least I can run away and not have my game ruined. It seems like it would be a pretty easy thing to fix.



tl;dr- early uniques genning with wands of polymorph are just kind of unfun and lead to a lot of early quits.

Re: Early game wand of polymorph

PostPosted: Thursday, 23rd June 2011, 06:35
by Grimm
Crawl is hard. Suck it up.

Re: Early game wand of polymorph

PostPosted: Thursday, 23rd June 2011, 08:03
by galehar
I disagree. It's more interesting to have to adapt to a few bad mutations than to be obliterated by a powerful wand. Mutations can be cured, death cannot.

Re: Early game wand of polymorph

PostPosted: Thursday, 23rd June 2011, 12:47
by Stormfox
Besides, it makes quaff-ID'ing that potion of cure mutation much more satisfying when you've got some mutations worth removing.

Re: Early game wand of polymorph

PostPosted: Thursday, 23rd June 2011, 14:20
by XuaXua
Grimm wrote:Crawl is hard. Suck it up.


GADDAMN ORC PRIESTS!

Re: Early game wand of polymorph

PostPosted: Thursday, 23rd June 2011, 14:55
by Tiber
galehar wrote:I disagree. It's more interesting to have to adapt to a few bad mutations than to be obliterated by a powerful wand. Mutations can be cured, death cannot.


If by adapt, you mean "give up on the character" and a few you mean "half the friggin wand, at least" I agree. Unless you've somehow come across an awesome ring of slaying or something, there's just no payoff to slogging through trying to salvage a probably doomed character at level 3.

Re: Early game wand of polymorph

PostPosted: Thursday, 23rd June 2011, 15:02
by mumra
The point is; there are a lot of "unfair" things that can kill you outright, all the way through the game. A Wand of Polymorph is not one of them - you got unlucky with a bad couple of mutations but it's still recoverable - on the other hand, XL:3 is not really far enough into the game to worry about losing a character!

Re: Early game wand of polymorph

PostPosted: Thursday, 23rd June 2011, 23:13
by mrbobbyg
Such a nice group of folks here.

Crawl is hard, for sure, and I do like to win games.

The reason wands of poly are particularly annoying to me, unlike say, orc priests, is that 1) you cannot see them coming, and 2) the irritate, instead of kill.

If they don't bother you, great.

Re: Early game wand of polymorph

PostPosted: Friday, 24th June 2011, 08:08
by Grimm
Some responses are a bit callous mrbobbyg but there is an important distinction between "things in Crawl that irritate you because you suffer from them" and "things in Crawl that need to be changed". Many's the time I've died and thereupon begun to fume, thinking "They should change this - this is unfair!" But upon reflection I usually realise that I could have played smarter and survived, or that it was simply the flipside of the RNG giving brilliantly helpful results. (That happens too - you know it.) There are things in Crawl that need to be changed, the devs are hard at work on many of them and are open to suggestions about things they have missed, as the Tavern evinces. But early polymorph wands are I think not one of these things.

Re: Early game wand of polymorph

PostPosted: Friday, 24th June 2011, 08:30
by joellercoaster
It's not that they don't bother me - on the contrary, they bother the hell out of me.

But I feel like they bother me in interesting ways. They change the course of a game as much as finding something good early, which nobody complains about :P. And they're not very common... it certainly sucks when they unload five charges of the thing into you though. Maybe a slightly better chance of them giving a neutral/beneficial mutation would make it suck less, but on balance I prefer the game with them than without.

In general I feel like there could be fractionally more ways of getting rid of mutations in the game (not too many, just a few more), but I know others disagree, and that's cool too.

[edit: I never quit. Unless I accidentally start the wrong class, or something. Every now and again, I end up salvaging an unsalvageable situation, and it's illuminating about the game, not to mention really satisfying.]

Re: Early game wand of polymorph

PostPosted: Friday, 24th June 2011, 09:56
by galehar
Also, there's already a special case to make monsters zap polymorph other 5 times less often than other wands.

Re: Early game wand of polymorph

PostPosted: Friday, 24th June 2011, 20:09
by mrbobbyg
Okay, fine.

I am being a baby.

=)


(It was such a promising character!)

Re: Early game wand of polymorph

PostPosted: Friday, 24th June 2011, 20:22
by XuaXua
mrbobbyg wrote:Okay, fine.

I am being a baby.

=)


(It was such a promising character!)


It should just force you to quaff id early.

Re: Early game wand of polymorph

PostPosted: Saturday, 25th June 2011, 04:58
by pratamawirya
mrbobbyg wrote:(It was such a promising character!)

We understand! We really do. ;)

Re: Early game wand of polymorph

PostPosted: Sunday, 26th June 2011, 15:24
by Bim
I never quit.


Never give up! Never surrender! Sigmund, the day will be mine!!....

*hits bat*
*bat hits you*
*you miss bat*
*bat hits you*
*you miss bat*
*bat hits you*
*you miss bat*
*you die*

Re: Early game wand of polymorph

PostPosted: Wednesday, 29th June 2011, 20:10
by MonorailCat
early wand of polymorph is ok.
but terence on D:2 with a wand of disintegration is a tad bit unfair. one shotted me without any possibility of escape ;>

Re: Early game wand of polymorph

PostPosted: Wednesday, 29th June 2011, 20:12
by XuaXua
MonorailCat wrote:early wand of polymorph is ok.
but terence on D:2 with a wand of disintegration is a tad bit unfair. one shotted me without any possibility of escape ;>


It's only D:2, what was that, 5 minutes?

Re: Early game wand of polymorph

PostPosted: Wednesday, 29th June 2011, 20:19
by TwilightPhoenix
You'd be surprised how many "it was only five minutes spent" you can go through when the RNG gives you a nasty streak by killing all your new characters.

Re: Early game wand of polymorph

PostPosted: Wednesday, 29th June 2011, 20:28
by MonorailCat
TwilightPhoenix wrote:You'd be surprised how many "it was only five minutes spent" you can go through when the RNG gives you a nasty streak by killing all your new characters.


My favorite is Kobold with Frost Darts right behind the first door.
Yay, dead after 30 seconds =)

Re: Early game wand of polymorph

PostPosted: Wednesday, 29th June 2011, 21:51
by galehar
MonorailCat wrote:early wand of polymorph is ok.
but terence on D:2 with a wand of disintegration is a tad bit unfair. one shotted me without any possibility of escape ;>

Yep, this one could afford to be added to the list of high tier wands.

Back on topic, to make the wand of poly other more interesting, it could have a chance to polymorph you into a random bad form (similar to porkalator). We would need to come up with several different bad forms (we're not reusing hog) and code them, but it could be fun. Some could even be mostly bad, but with one good feature, which you have to try to make the best use of.

Re: Early game wand of polymorph

PostPosted: Thursday, 30th June 2011, 02:11
by XuaXua
I would like the polymorph effect to be temporary, as both a recipient and user of said wand.

I would LOVE a polymorph target to maintain the intelligence of the original; when I turned a rat into a spriggan that one time, that bastard summoned the crap out of the dungeon onto me.

Rather than mutations, being polymorphed into a different character race, with all the benefits and drawbacks therein, might be more amusing. Could be the first High Elf Priest of Beogh.

Re: Early game wand of polymorph

PostPosted: Thursday, 30th June 2011, 02:25
by Zuboki
XuaXua wrote:I would like the polymorph effect to be temporary, as both a recipient and user of said wand.

I would LOVE a polymorph target to maintain the intelligence of the original; when I turned a rat into a spriggan that one time, that bastard summoned the crap out of the dungeon onto me.

Rather than mutations, being polymorphed into a different character race, with all the benefits and drawbacks therein, might be more amusing. Could be the first High Elf Priest of Beogh.


At level 20 or so:

The kobold zaps you with a wand of polymorph other!
You are now a Demonspawn!
mutation x 12
The Shining One excommunicates you!
You are smitten!
You die...

Re: Early game wand of polymorph

PostPosted: Thursday, 30th June 2011, 03:33
by XuaXua
Zuboki wrote:
XuaXua wrote:I would like the polymorph effect to be temporary, as both a recipient and user of said wand.

I would LOVE a polymorph target to maintain the intelligence of the original; when I turned a rat into a spriggan that one time, that bastard summoned the crap out of the dungeon onto me.

Rather than mutations, being polymorphed into a different character race, with all the benefits and drawbacks therein, might be more amusing. Could be the first High Elf Priest of Beogh.


At level 20 or so:

The kobold zaps you with a wand of polymorph other!
You are now a Demonspawn!
mutation x 12
The Shining One excommunicates you!
You are smitten!
You die...


I'd allow religions to be maintained; unless you targeted yourself with the wand.

Re: Early game wand of polymorph

PostPosted: Thursday, 30th June 2011, 08:57
by mumra
minmay wrote:toad form (not sure what to do for gameplay, but turning people into toads is THE signature baleful polymorph).


Toad form lets you hop; an ability that works a bit like a (semi?) controlled blink; but shorter range, and you can't hop over big things like giants. The accuracy of how close you land to your destination is determined by Dex/Acc.

Re: Early game wand of polymorph

PostPosted: Thursday, 30th June 2011, 09:38
by joellercoaster
galehar wrote:Some could even be mostly bad, but with one good feature, which you have to try to make the best use of.


Oh, this is a great idea.

Bats (having terrible control, 'battiness')? Some kind of wall-clingers? Some very slow thing with a confusion bite? So many cool options...

Re: Early game wand of polymorph

PostPosted: Thursday, 30th June 2011, 11:00
by Galefury
I agree this sounds awesome. Wands in general are kind of unfair because you don't know about them until you get zapped, so changing the wand of poly to having mostly temporary effects would be good IMO.

Rat form could work nicely for a bad form. Crappy attack, but tiny size. Agate snail form would be awesome, really slow (something like half or 1/3 movement and action), EV is gone due to large size, but hits like a truck. Also snail form could get an ability to withdraw into its shell. The low level forms are also pretty bad if you haven't trained unarmed, so randomly turning into a spider or ice beast could work too. Transmuters having less of a disadvantage from being transmuted is fine IMO. Monks, not so much, but oh well, you don't get zapped with a wand of poly that often. Maybe having some bad forms that can wear armor would be nice, otherwise heavy armor chars would be penalized more by this than dodgers. I like "your hands turn into goo" (prevents weapon use, huge unarmed and spellcasting penalty). :)

Maybe even adding this to the spell version would be good (with a lower chance). Being temporarily turned into a slug is both much more interesting and much more dangerous than getting a -1 dex mutation. Plus it doesn't have to get blocked by rMut (stasis could maybe protect against form changes). :)
This change would need some serious consideration though, as it would change the late game a lot.

Re: Early game wand of polymorph

PostPosted: Tuesday, 5th July 2011, 19:48
by ElectricAlbatross
Bad forms would be the perfect place to bring in Turtle Form from the list of bad suggestions.

Re: Early game wand of polymorph

PostPosted: Tuesday, 5th July 2011, 21:32
by Jeremiah
Jelly form - Things that you are carrying (except artifacts, runes etc) have a chance to get destroyed randomly. But maybe you get healed a bit when they do. Maybe if you 'eat' enough things you can spawn jellies that remain neutral as long as you are in jelly form.

Ok, maybe this belongs in Crazy Yiuf's corner. :P