Adjust Malmutate in Extended

[Floodkiller]

Removing rMut was a necessary (although unpopular) change, as it was a boring resistance. In a three rune game, the only likely occurances of Malmutate are OOFs in Zot, the occasional summon, a trip to the Abyss, or Slime as a third rune. When it shows up, it is usually on a monster that you respect danger-wise (or is a shining eye and fits the theme of Slime and Jiyva). Thus, it represents an interesting challenge, but does not come up often enough to frustrate the player.

However, Malmutate in Extended is too commonplace and often given to enemies that are otherwise completely popcorn at that stage of the game. The change of reducing the spawns of neqoxecs and increasing cure mut spawns has not done enough to reduce the tedium of continually having to treat neqoxecs and cacodemons like Fiends when you would otherwise ignore them for more important threats. If Malmutate is to stay unchanged (as it looks like it will be), then it should be attached to a threatening (but rare) monster in Extended instead of trash.

I would argue that neqoxecs should lose Malmutate (either replaced with a temp version or more chance to int drain), but regain their spawn weight. Cacodemons should be promoted to a Tier 1 demon, getting a buff to HD and defenses/offenses (and maybe seeing a spellset revision if Slow and Confuse are too weak even with the spellpower boost) and made rarer to spawn accordingly. The reasoning is that I feel that Malmutate matches the strength of an ability that a Tier 1 demon would use, and should be as rare/on a monster as immediately threatening as one for the purposes of Hell/Pan/Abyss if it is to still exist in its current form.

[infinitevox]

Removing rMut was a necessary

I disagree with this statement. Anything that can affect your play as much as malmutate should have a way to mitigate it. I won't get on my soap-box about it, but I disagree.

As for your proposal, I like it. Cacodemons should be T1, considering what part of the game they start to appear.

[Sar]

The rarity of neqwhatever spawns was already significantly reduced and the cure mutation potions were made more common. I can see malmutation being made more rare, but then you'll need to do the same to the potions.

[Speleothing]

Removing rMut was a necessary (although unpopular) change, as it was a boring resistance.

Lies.

rMut, Clarity, Stasis, rCorr, and Regen formed a set of resists that were interesting to swap between. I appreciate the change to Regen and the addition of Magic Regen, Dismissal, and Reflection. But those would have actually made the resist-swapping minigame even more interesting and fun.


Warding was kinda lame, but probably could have been improved instead of deleted.

[Floodkiller]

The rarity of neqwhatever spawns was already significantly reduced and the cure mutation potions were made more common. I can see malmutation being made more rare, but then you'll need to do the same to the potions.

Agreed, I feel that increasing their generation rates is just a band aid fix in the current implementation, and would be fine with them going back to their original rates with this proposal.

As for why I feel that rMut is a boring resistance that deserved removal, it is because rMut's one job is to provide near immunity to a normally irresistible attack, similar to Conservation and item destruction. This is why I added the "If Malmutate is to remain in its current state" line, as my personal opinion is that the mechanic as is should not exist in Crawl. However, this proposal focuses on improving the current situation in the short term by rectifying one of the main reasons it is often frustrating (it is too commonly encountered in Extended vs 3-rune, and often on popcorn enemies).

[crate]

The problem with mutations is crawl devs don't really know what mutations in crawl are supposed to do, or at least that's my guess, because I sure have no idea. Once there's a direction for mutations to go (should they be a thing players actually get? If not, why are there so many goodmuts that players will never see? If so, why don't players actually get mutations?) then other things can happen so mutations make sense.

[Speleothing]

What's the overall ratio of good:bad:neutral mutations these days? Could Malmutate's percentage be shifted to give more totally random mutations and less purely bad ones?

[amaril]

rMut, Clarity, Stasis, rCorr, and Regen formed a set of resists that were interesting to swap between.

How often was this actually interesting? In the rare situations where there is both an entropy weaver and a neqoxec in los?

The main result of the mut change (no rmut, more pots of cmut) has been that mutations in general feel more transient. If you are in a branch w/ mutators, you will get some, but you can usually erase them if they are undesirable. With fewer cmut, mutations felt like long-term detriments that you sometimes had to specifically work around.

[Tiktacy]

The problem this post is describing is not consistent with my experiences in the last couple days having gone into extended twice for grinding experience before entering megazigs.For anyone who is interested, I died my first time from darkness running out and getting hit by 20+ consecutive smite-damnations(this was my 10th zig), and the second time I died to cerebov before entering a zig.

Cure mutation is much more common now, and no I'm not talking about in zig spawns, I mean in the non-extended portion of the game cure mutations are in quite the abundance, and on top of that they seem to be more effective than they used to be(but this could just be clustering illusion).

[Quazifuji]

The problem with mutations is crawl devs don't really know what mutations in crawl are supposed to do, or at least that's my guess, because I sure have no idea. Once there's a direction for mutations to go (should they be a thing players actually get? If not, why are there so many goodmuts that players will never see? If so, why don't players actually get mutations?) then other things can happen so mutations make sense.

In a similar vein: what is the purpose of malmutate on monsters? I think malmutate on monsters serves two very different purposes, and I think both have significant flaws.

Malmutate on Weak Monsters (Neqoxecs, Shining Eyes): Malmutate on otherwise weak monsters seems to have plenty of counterplay. The solution is to treat them kind of like monsters with banish when you have low MR: avoid giving them line of fire as much as possible, and kill them as fast as possible. They're easy to kill, but also potentially extremely threatening. This can work in theory, but as many people have pointed out since rMut was removed, needing to treat otherwise harmless enemies as high threats can also be annoying and tedious.

Malmutate on Strong Monsters (OoFs, Mnoleg, Cacodemons (especially if they get buffed as proposed)): These seem to be the malmutators that people like. The idea seems to be that since they're already threatening, needing to also watch out for the threat of malmutate isn't a huge nuisance. On the other hand, my issue with this is that it sometimes feels like there's no counterplay. What do you do about malmutate on OoFs? You can't just kill them super quickly like you can with Neqoxecs or Shining Eyes, you can't count on killing OoFs before they have the chance to mutate you. The end result, or at least this is how it feels to me, is that there isn't really any counterplay to it. OoFs having malmutate doesn't change the way I approach fights with them, it just means that sometimes after a fight I'm left with some mutations.

Overall, I'm just not sure if malmutate is ever really adding anything interesting to the game. I love the idea of mutations, but it feels like malmutate on weak enemies is considered extremely annoying by most, and malmutate on strong enemies doesn't really make the enemies more interesting because there isn't a good way to avoid it.

One idea that's come up in the past that I liked is replacing malmutate with an ability that gives contamination, but not enough to cause mutations with only one cast. It still gives the possibility of being mutated, but adds a bit more counterplay in the form of potions of cancellation or running away if you notice contamination buildup. I think this would help address the issues for both weaker and stronger enemies. Weak enemies like Neqoxecs or Shining Eyes would still have the potential to be threats without requiring the excessive care that they do now, while stronger enemies like OoFs would present the interesting choice of deciding whether to abandon the fight or try to finish them off if you notice your contamination getting too high.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Serious proposal: return amulet of resist mutation to the game, buff it to 100% resist but make it halve damage dealt by player by every means. So now you have an interesting choice: die due to dealing only 50% damage or keep your Robust 1 and Blink 1.

[CanOfWorms]

alternatively: make amulet of resist mutation torments the player every time a mutation attempt is resisted

[Croases]

second alternative: rmut amulet has 100% protection, but gives you one guaranteed badmut whenever you remove it.

so you can have your mutless game if you want but the cost for it is no faith etc. ever.

[infinitevox]

As much as I hate the *Fragile ego, I think I found a good use for it...

third alternative: rMut amulet is back with 100% protection, always has *Fragile, and acts as if you drank a potion of mutation if you remove it.

[lethediver]

second alternative: rmut amulet has 100% protection, but gives you one guaranteed badmut whenever you remove it.

so you can have your mutless game if you want but the cost for it is no faith etc. ever.

Elegant. I like it.

[mrob]

What do you do about malmutate on OoFs? You can't just kill them super quickly like you can with Neqoxecs or Shining Eyes, you can't count on killing OoFs before they have the chance to mutate you. The end result, or at least this is how it feels to me, is that there isn't really any counterplay to it. OoFs having malmutate doesn't change the way I approach fights with them, it just means that sometimes after a fight I'm left with some mutations.

No counterplay for pure melee characters, but it doesn't take much magic to avoid the mutations. Summon Butterflies blocks their Malmutate, Portal Projectile lets you hurt them without hurting the summons. Portal Projectile can be cast in advance so it doesn't need to be reliable.

[Elitist]

As much as I hate the *Fragile ego, I think I found a good use for it...

third alternative: rMut amulet is back with 100% protection, always has *Fragile, and acts as if you drank a potion of mutation if you remove it.

If it's fragile, that means we're encouraged to carry more than one, which is something that the dev team has been trying to avoid.

and if it has, rework the hydrae head regrowing mechanic so I have to stop carrying a flaming weapon.

[pedritolo]

often given to enemies that are otherwise completely popcorn at that stage of the game.

I see, it's a matter of perspective. I treat neqos and shinning eyes as extremely dangerous foes. Not at all popcorn. And they are dangerous because of their malmutate. I fear them and fight accordingly.

[ONIchinchin]

I would argue that neqoxecs should lose Malmutate... made rarer to spawn accordingly

You can't since after all, your argument is just "I want to have an even easier time in extended". Make it a habit to maintain your focus on identifying threats and they will become a non-issue.

[Floodkiller]

I would argue that neqoxecs should lose Malmutate... made rarer to spawn accordingly

You can't since after all, your argument is just "I want to have an even easier time in extended". Make it a habit to maintain your focus on identifying threats and they will become a non-issue.

I would be happy to see them have something that replaces Malmutate that is more tactically dangerous, like Torment or Hellfire, than strategically dangerous, as Malmutate currently is. Hell, I would take them having an irresistable spell that reduced your MR to zero as a temporary status effect, solely because it would be temporary. I don't believe Crawl should have permanent damage aside from the player choosing to inflict it upon themselves, or through the player's choice to reduce their options through use (reducing their consumable stock for later by consuming a consumable now, rather than item destruction destroying it). This proposal was made under the assumption that no large change was being accepted without substantial follow on modifications to how mutations/malmutate/these enemies and the vaults/summoners they spawn from/etc., so I focused solely on the portion of the game where malmutate frustates me the most due to how common it is.

[bel]

I would be happy to see them have something that replaces Malmutate that is more tactically dangerous, like Torment or Hellfire, than strategically dangerous, as Malmutate currently is. Hell, I would take them having an irresistable spell that reduced your MR to zero as a temporary status effect, solely because it would be temporary. I don't believe Crawl should have permanent damage aside from the player choosing to inflict it upon themselves, or through the player's choice to reduce their options through use (reducing their consumable stock for later by consuming a consumable now, rather than item destruction destroying it). This proposal was made under the assumption that no large change was being accepted without substantial follow on modifications to how mutations/malmutate/these enemies and the vaults/summoners they spawn from/etc., so I focused solely on the portion of the game where malmutate frustates me the most due to how common it is.

I think you are conflating two different things, strategic vs tactical and temporary vs permanent. You are mostly correct about the former (with some caveats) but not the latter.

Mutations are not permanent because you can cure them. However, there is a cost to avoiding mutations (and thus the possibility of curing them when needed). It is mostly strategic: you can elect use a consumable to reduce the chance of mutations (say fog/blinking/invis), you can train skills accordingly (for instance, evocations or ranged weapons) etc. Or it can even be tactical (controlling LoS, consumable use, god abilities etc.)

It's true that mutations are not "tactical" in the sense of "not killing you right now". But you can still use tactics to avoid them, though I agree that a fair bit of the cost is strategic.

I agree that permanent (or semi-permanent) damage like mutations (or rot) is unpleasant. But I don't think they should be removed in favour of tactical alternatives. This is obviously subjective.

[Floodkiller]

I think you are conflating two different things, strategic vs tactical and temporary vs permanent. You are mostly correct about the former (with some caveats) but not the latter.

Mutations are not permanent because you can cure them. However, there is a cost to avoiding mutations (and thus the possibility of curing them when needed). It is mostly strategic: you can elect use a consumable to reduce the chance of mutations (say fog/blinking/invis), you can train skills accordingly (for instance, evocations or ranged weapons) etc. Or it can even be tactical (controlling LoS, consumable use, god abilities etc.)

It's true that mutations are not "tactical" in the sense of "not killing you right now". But you can still use tactics to avoid them, though I agree that a fair bit of the cost is strategic.

I agree that permanent (or semi-permanent) damage like mutations (or rot) is unpleasant. But I don't think they should be removed in favour of tactical alternatives. This is obviously subjective.

If you want to include a state called semi-permanent, then I agree that my definition is incorrect. I rephrase my point to be that permanent damage does not belong in Crawl, and semi-permanent damage sources should likely be restructured to be based around XP gain recovery and not consumable use. Unfortunately, the mutation system would need a revamp to support this.

For reference, I also consider Rot bad, but it is so rare that it is unnoticable.

[bel]

Transient mutations are a possibility, which sounded appealing to me when I thought about it, but it didn't when I thought about it more.

Firstly, we have to answer the question: what is the mutation system supposed to achieve? My guess is that they are meant as tweaks to your character which would change your style of play in a nontrivial manner. Most mutations, unfortunately (+1 AC, really?), are too boring to meet this ideal, but I think it should be the ideal.

Transient mutations would be nothing more than an inconvenience, since they don't last long enough for them to change your play. It seems to me that the only way to achieve this goal (if this is to be a goal) is to have a semi-permanent effect, which can only be removed by paying a big cost. This way, you'd keep playing with some bad mutations and mostly cure them if they become crippling.

[Sprucery]

Transient mutations would be nothing more than an inconvenience, since they don't last long enough for them to change your play.

Imo all that is needed is to set the amount of exp required to remove the mutations large enough.

If we had these kind of long lasting transient mutations it would be nice to see in the 'A' screen how close you are in getting the mutation off.

  Code:

*You are frail. (75% removed)

or something like that.