My 2 cents on new gods


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Post Wednesday, 25th May 2016, 21:06

My 2 cents on new gods

I've played very few games with the new gods, and I'd like to share my initial, still not very deep, opinions.

First of all, generally speaking I don't really understand why there's this urge of add a couple of new gods every version.
I loathe this idea most of all because they are often rushed into the game in a clearly unfinished state both flavour-wise that balance-wise. Gozag iswas the biggest offender, but at this point I think there are also other gods who'd still need some balance\rework, like Pakellas, but who most probably won't be touched for the next 4 versions, because there will be another 10 gods in queue.
Secondarly, because at this point it's evident new gods needs to fill very niche gameplay style that often are convoluted and sometimes doesn't work very well with DCSS gameplay.
Thirdly, sometimes - again e.g. Pakellas - they step into already existing gods' territory, and I still don't understand the necessity of this kind of addition - as currently the number of available god for common races is so huge I don't think it's really necessary to have multiple gods who do same things. This also because it's going to be extremely confusing and hard to learn for new players.

Now, some not yet totally developed opinions about the two new gods.
The dance one: I've played a bit with a melee guy and with a enchanter one. I admit don't get him really well but ugh it's bad for me both gameplay-wise that powerwise. I find him extremely bad, to the point he doesn't really work right now.
The main problem is that the idea of fighting lot of things at same time, fucking your positioning in prolonged combat doesn't cope very well with the objective of winning in DCSS.
At the current powers' balance, I think the god is pretty much useless: the easy pack you're going to fight in that dance style - you would kill those anyway. The hard pack or dangerous monsters you're going to fight normally, because the powers aren't strong enough to give up the most important thing in the game (positioning and control of the enemies in LOS).
Probably there is a grey line about packs of monster tough enough you'd need to kill separated\with 1 in LOS at same time instead of together if playing godless, but that doesn't mean much.

The thing I believe need more rework is the dance and confuse ability: it totally fuck your positioning, I think it should *add* piety, not suck it a lot. Maybe causing exhaustion to avoid to be spammed. The confusion thing on the paper would be nice for a stabber but actually it is hardly working - at least with normal invo.
The stomp ability seems weak enough to me that doesn't justify its use over 'tab' with a good weapon\spell.
The 'finish him' ability on the paper looks great but in reality it's 'meh'. Against pack of same kind of monster it doesn't work: if I've killed already 4 of those, instant-killing the 5th isn't going to be a situation of live-or-death, otherwise I'd already run away. If there's a dangerous enemy, I'm not going to fight him with other shit around, and if somehow I'm going to fight with others nearby, I'm kinda prioritizing to hit him asap, and not wasting precious turns to beat some rats around. Actually, the only occasion where I could "successfully" use it was in Lair, when hogs started to appear inside a "chess" styll walls: I knew Kirke was nearby, but she wasn't yet in LOS (and I could easily manage to keep outsite of LOS, in that area if I wished) so I could hit and kills the kinda harmless hogs party until I managed to get enough piety get a free kill on her. Actually this is open a new series of abuse at least around some vaults - where you could lure weak enemies to pump your piety to finish strong uniques in one hit, like hell\pan, 27hydra and so on. I don't think it's a good thing however.
The paralysis thing is also 'meh': if I'm fighting a pack it means not much, because if I'm fighting a pack together it means that pack isn't actually dangerous . Against a single opponent it is probably neat if playing a stabber, otherwise I don't think is so important.

Overall, I do like the idea of a God who change the core-playstyle of DCSS, but I don't think this Dance guy can success at it, at all, at least if trying to win the game.
Not because I'm comparing to other gods - his powers obviously are good early on because they start to work immediately but fall off very quickly, at least in comparison to fedhas, trog, etc - but because 99% of times it would be still much better to play the game like always. I do think his powers and strength need to be improved, a lot, to balance the fact he's asking to fuck up the most important things in the game. Like adding much more paralysis, maybe according to the number of monsters in LOS, giving some vamp effect, and so on.

About the permanent ally god: why does he exist? We have already of summons and ally of something in the game, why was he necessary?
I've tried a single game with a battlemage ancestor while playing a melee guy. It was like having a semi-permanent spellforged servitor \ battlesphere\ orc warlord\ whatever.
Power wise he's okay - probably very good if you're going to abuse at most him with positioning, luring, kiting etcetera.
The swap power is kinda interesting to use, to fuck up some enemies - like summoners.
I don't get why there should be an active 'heal and power up' button. I think it would work much better if passive, like Beogh's buff, giving health and maybe temporary effect light agility, swiftness and so on.
I mostly think there should be some improvement over the usual command interface, because it doesn't work for a permanent ally, if a permanent ally is now (again) a thing in DCSS. For example, the necessity to 't'ell to attack every single dangerous enemy who appear in LOS is most annoying and stupid. It would be much better if it would be possible to set a standard behaviour - like "rush to everything appears asap", "stay close to me but attack with spells asap", "don't attack until I do" and so on.
Overall, ally's god seems to me decently developed and with a good balance - but again, what does he add to the game? It's pretty much possible to get the same things with at least three different magic schools, another skill, two already existing gods, so why he is necessary?
Last edited by nago on Wednesday, 25th May 2016, 21:12, edited 1 time in total.
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Post Wednesday, 25th May 2016, 21:11

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

nago wrote:I loathe this idea most of all because they are often rushed into the game in a clearly unfinished state both flavour-wise that balance-wise.

A critical part of getting a game feature -- especially a complex or complicated game feature -- into "finished state" is play testing.

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Post Wednesday, 25th May 2016, 21:17

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

Not going to say anything about balance, but I had a lot of fun playing with the ally god. Significantly new content in the game seems refreshing.
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Post Wednesday, 25th May 2016, 21:19

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

Hurkyl wrote:
nago wrote:I loathe this idea most of all because they are often rushed into the game in a clearly unfinished state both flavour-wise that balance-wise.

A critical part of getting a game feature -- especially a complex or complicated game feature -- into "finished state" is play testing.
which is why they're put in stable versions and then never get fixed

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Post Wednesday, 25th May 2016, 21:22

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

Hurkyl wrote:
nago wrote:I loathe this idea most of all because they are often rushed into the game in a clearly unfinished state both flavour-wise that balance-wise.

A critical part of getting a game feature -- especially a complex or complicated game feature -- into "finished state" is play testing.


Yeah, I agree. Some balances and tweaks on new features are totally understandable and often necessary. I do appreciate the fact devs gives the chance to try those chances via trunk to everyone .

However, adding half-baked ideas, with absolutely coherence or clearness, flavour-wise, which translate into random powers totally unbalanced and incoherent is a totally different thing. For example, how many versions did take to Gozag to become a somewhat playable and sensible god? And yet he was added into *stable* version long before he was developed into the current (I suppose) final state.
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Post Wednesday, 25th May 2016, 21:41

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

Or look at Beogh. He's been in the game for more than eight years and still has the same problems as when he was introduced.

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Post Wednesday, 25th May 2016, 21:46

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

You didn't mention Ru, who is an extremely well designed god and probably one of my favorites. The fact that you aren't acknowledging successes leads me to believe you just want to complain about things being different. Qazlal is also an extremely fun god to play with, even if he isn't very strong. Gods are not meant to be perfectly balanced(which in your defense, I disagree with) in terms of power level, chei is fairly weak and does exactly what you are describing is wrong with the dance god(discourages proper positioning), but a lot of people(including myself) really enjoy him as a god. As as gozag goes, I can't really give much of an opinion on him because I dislike him as a god in general(his gameplay is boring to me so I've only tried him a couple times and died before my first rune).

I completely agree on pakellas, I cringe every time I see his altar in the game. The fact that he exists just feels so pointless and just seems to lack purpose outside of "lolEvoGod." Compare that to something like Ru who has very good synergy with stabbers, but is obviously not specifically meant to be a "stealth/stabbing god." Again, compare it to okuwaru who has good synergy with ranged weaponry, but is obviously not specifically a "ranged god."

Trog and vehumet/sif muna I suppose are an exception, but literally every game MUST include either magic or melee, and most of the time it ends up including a little of both.

Also, I greatly dislike pakellases gameplay, I find it unappealing.
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Post Wednesday, 25th May 2016, 21:51

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

duvessa wrote:Or look at Beogh. He's been in the game for more than eight years and still has the same problems as when he was introduced.


Beogh isn't a god, Beogh is just something dpeg uses to pick of weeby korean girls. Like Tinder, or a highschool anime club.
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Post Wednesday, 25th May 2016, 21:52

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

Tiktacy: if you knew how well that works, you wouldn't change Beogh either!

Beogh is a sexy god for sexy people.

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Post Thursday, 26th May 2016, 09:51

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

you mean introducing them to beogh...

leaves them smitten?

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Post Thursday, 26th May 2016, 11:00

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

Tiktacy wrote:You didn't mention Ru, who is an extremely well designed god and probably one of my favorites. The fact that you aren't acknowledging successes leads me to believe you just want to complain about things being different. Qazlal is also an extremely fun god to play with, even if he isn't very strong. Gods are not meant to be perfectly balanced(which in your defense, I disagree with) in terms of power level, chei is fairly weak and does exactly what you are describing is wrong with the dance god(discourages proper positioning), but a lot of people(including myself) really enjoy him as a god. As as gozag goes, I can't really give much of an opinion on him because I dislike him as a god in general(his gameplay is boring to me so I've only tried him a couple times and died before my first rune).


I didn't mention positive examples because I don't think it was necessary - I hope, as development history has overall shown so far, that devs know what take to develop a good feature and don't require a simple player to teach about that. As you mentioned Ru, he is actually one of my favourite gods and probably the favourite around the "new" batch. This because he successfully add new mechanics into the game, while balancing them well enough to make competitive in confront of "optimal play" and other gods, while having a sweet coherent and interesting flavour.
Nevertheless, when he firstly was added, I still partecipated to the discussion topic suggesting some minor or major tweaks, because there were some things that seemed to me unbalanced.

I don't think Chei is a proper comparison: while he does fuck with your speed he doesn't actively encourages to fuck your positioning. Actually, positioning with chei is much more important than usual because you can't easily move if things go south, and Chei himself grants major powers to help with that - personally I loathe the fact a god takes away a thing that need to be put back with active powers, because clearly shows it doesn't really work with the base gameplay of the game.
On the other hand, Dance guy actively ask you to fuck your positioning, e.g. **... power, or pain bound: is not a "indirect" consequence of the conduit, but how he ask to play the game. At the current state of the balance, the only right answer, if the aim is to win the game, is "lolwut, you're crazy. I'm going over that altar with bloody bits right here, bye".

As you mention Qzlol, I'll derail a bit: overall I don't think he's bad developed. I don't think his conduit - which is the worst and more influent in the gameplay till now - does work or, at least, is interesting, in DCSS because he transform a roguelike in a turret-like game, but it's a personal opinion. I'd only like to see this stated much more clearly on the ^ screen. A secondary tweak quite important would be to give him a 3* power which ins't totally fucked by his own 1* power, but that is kinda secondary.

Please note I'm no talking about power level of gods. If the game really need new gods (again, why?) I'd be okay with Dance guy being weak, but at least he should be decent and interesting to play in what particular he ask to do - kinda like are chei or qzlol.
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Post Thursday, 26th May 2016, 12:15

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

My question to the developers: would crawl be better if it has 50 different gods? And why?

If not, than I think we should think about what is the desired state of the pantheon. If we just add gods and never remove, we could easily reach 50 sooner or later. If it is not desired, than maybe some gods should be removed.
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Post Thursday, 26th May 2016, 12:19

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

The obvious answer is that the goal is to have 27 gods. Of course it's a challenge to create that many unique, balanced, fun etc. gods.
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Post Thursday, 26th May 2016, 12:28

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

There's the idea that 27 is a scale that players can grok. I believe this because Crawl always had about two dozen species and backgrounds, and players get along with this fine. One reason why I always insisted on different initials for different gods is that this puts a natural cap of 27.

The god closest to removal yet was Nemelex.

Because gods can change rules, some of them try to set up different play styles (on a bigger scale than species). This does not always work and has been removed on Elyvilon again, for example. Other gods that try and dominate your game: Cheibriados, Qazlal, Nemelex and, to a lesser extent, Beogh.

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Post Thursday, 26th May 2016, 12:54

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

dpeg wrote:The god closest to removal yet was Nemelex.

how typical, the most fun god in the game was also the closest to being removed

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Post Thursday, 26th May 2016, 13:01

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

Sar: just like we did it with the Mountain Dwarf!

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Post Thursday, 26th May 2016, 13:07

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

dwarves were boring shit though, Nemelex offers like 20-30 completely unique and crazy effects

just stop the cards from polluting inventory and you have the best god in the game, easily

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Post Thursday, 26th May 2016, 14:51

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

Ukawaya is a god for axes user, it was very nice to fight draconians in Zot 5 and then finish off an Orb of Fire. Some abilities are not as great as they could be but saying that it is useless god is not right IMHO. Not every god should be good for every character.

Hepl is the best god ever, I won most of possible combos and enjoyed all those games: I am caster and the ally is caster, melee/melee, hexer/hexer, caster/melee, melee/caster, hexer/caster. Unique gameplay and great flavor.
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Post Thursday, 26th May 2016, 16:37

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

Haven't tried Ukawaya because they look too stupid/fussy even for me, and I'm a huge qaz fan.

Ru is still the shining glory of the new gods for me (biased because I won with them) but I also love qaz for the change in gameplay, and Pak because rods are fun.

Tried one Hepl game and I found it a ton of fun to have a hexing buddy. I dont know if I'd ever chose the other ones though.
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Post Thursday, 26th May 2016, 19:18

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

I like Hep because it feels sort of similar to beogh in that they're "permanent", but also I don't feel driven to micromanage which allies are following me and I don't need to herd them around to prevent them from permanently dying.
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Post Thursday, 26th May 2016, 20:00

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

Sar wrote:
dpeg wrote:The god closest to removal yet was Nemelex.

how typical, the most fun god in the game was also the closest to being removed


I think most people agree that he is fun, but I get the feeling the reason has more to do with coding and updating him each version. If you look at the version history on the wiki, cards and decks are constantly being changed, and that very well could be a nightmare for the devs to keep up on.

I highly doubt the devs are out of touch enough to remove a god like nemelex because he 'isn't fun."
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Post Thursday, 26th May 2016, 20:03

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

no the reason is that everything about nemelex is terrible and stupid

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Post Thursday, 26th May 2016, 20:23

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

duvessa wrote:no the reason is that everything about nemelex is terrible and stupid


Get the sand out of your crack and actually explain yourself. I've seen you say this many times but I've never seen or understood your reasoning.

The only thing wrong with nemelex atm is inventory clutter, and thats not hard to fix. Nemelex has been one of my favorite gods for a long time, and it only got better after they removed that horrible pray over items feature.
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Post Thursday, 26th May 2016, 20:36

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

nemelex is based around cards, which have around 120 different effects a player needs to be aware of to make informed use of them, and none of those effects are actually especially interesting. getting rid of decks in inventory would take some of the poop out of the poop sandwich, but it would remain a sandwich with lots of poop in it and very little non-poop
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Post Thursday, 26th May 2016, 20:54

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

duvessa wrote:nemelex is based around cards, which have around 120 different effects a player needs to be aware of to make informed use of them, and none of those effects are actually especially interesting. getting rid of decks in inventory would take some of the poop out of the poop sandwich, but it would remain a sandwich with lots of poop in it and very little non-poop


The card effects could be added to the manual. Why aren't they to begin with anyway?

Also, interesting is sort of subjective, and following nemelex is optional and rarely optimal. There is literally no reason to remove him if coding isn't that big of a deal. The only god I've ever believed should be removed is Beogh, and that was only because of the devs refusal to fix his major problems(which has started to change in the last few versions).

I still think gods need to be tested longer before being added to a stable release though.
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Post Thursday, 26th May 2016, 21:06

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

Just for clarification, is your contention that the mentioned effects are bad (like none of them should be in the game at all) or that is is bad that we have that many different effects (cognitive overload/ confusing to explain and it document) or that it is bad that only worshippers of one good can access those effects?

Or perhaps you meant something else or some combination of the above?
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Post Thursday, 26th May 2016, 21:11

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

Tiktacy: This is not about spoilers, you can read card descriptions in-game with ?/C. (the . gives you a list of all cards). I think it'd be even more overhead to list cards in the manual.

There is a reason to remove Nemelex if all active developers think he doesn't add enough to the game. (I am not sure it's quite there yet, that is the ordinary procedure to remove stuff.)

About testing: Gozag, Hepliaklqana, Ukayaw did all move into trunk later than they could do. (In other words, they were functional but considered not ready yet.)

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Post Thursday, 26th May 2016, 21:41

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

So there are a couple things here. First, since god choice is actually usually not something a player chooses based just on strength, it's okay if a god isn't great or encourages things that would otherwise not be good ideas. See also: chei, possibly qaz. It's a lot more like choosing a race or background than it is choosing whether to visit a portal vault or a particular branch. Power level still matters but it's okay if gods are bad (it's less okay if gods are too powerful).

I think Ukayaw is very well-done except possibly for abusable (but possibly also unfixable) things with the piety system. I admit that while Uka was in experimental I did not actually try to maintain piety between fights by dragging around a harmless monster, so maybe it's not possible. It also may be a case where there isn't a real solution. Anyway, let's ignore that possibility, at least for now.

I suspect your problems are at least related to your invo being too low. Uka is more like Ely than any other existing god in invo demands; you very much want a lot of invo. This would explain why you find stomp and line pass's confusion underwhelming (though possibly stomp needs more numbers adjustments? Last time I used it it was different and was too strong, so Lasty changed the formula; I don't have experience with stomp after that).

Personally my biggest problem with Uka is that stomp has huge overlap with cleaving. If axes didn't exist stomp would be a lot more interesting, or I guess if you do use non-axes, except that using anything except axes or short blades with Uka is probably a mistake. Everything else worked fine when I tried Uka in the experimental branches, except I guess I didn't get to grand finale piety like at all so I never used it (I don't think it's useless if you can get there, though). I didn't find Uka weak even with the way he encourages you to fight in a normally-more-dangerous manner, though it's true he's no Trog.

---

Most of the problems with Hep either fall into crawl allies (especially permanent allies, and yes Hep's ally has almost all the problems of permanent allies) being problematic or there already being too many ally gods. I think the concept is okay but the execution is more mediocre than anything. It also doesn't help that monsters have really weird scaling (the knight starts off strong but then it basically never improves in damage as the game goes on, so it becomes useless for damage after a certain point). But the concept doesn't interest me too much anyway so I don't have much more to say.

---

I think both of these gods are much, much better designed than Pakellas and also Gozag. I won't elaborate on Gozag here for my own reasons, but Pakellas's entire idea is awful.

---

Re: Nemelex: He should use invocations (not evocations) and the deck system is really bad, but I still like the idea of a god that gives you semi-random on-demand effects. I can't defend the actual implementation of Nemelex though.

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Post Thursday, 26th May 2016, 22:08

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

crate wrote:So there are a couple things here. First, since god choice is actually usually not something a player chooses based just on strength, it's okay if a god isn't great or encourages things that would otherwise not be good ideas. See also: chei, possibly qaz. It's a lot more like choosing a race or background than it is choosing whether to visit a portal vault or a particular branch. Power level still matters but it's okay if gods are bad (it's less okay if gods are too powerful).

I think Ukayaw is very well-done except possibly for abusable (but possibly also unfixable) things with the piety system. I admit that while Uka was in experimental I did not actually try to maintain piety between fights by dragging around a harmless monster, so maybe it's not possible. It also may be a case where there isn't a real solution. Anyway, let's ignore that possibility, at least for now.

I suspect your problems are at least related to your invo being too low. Uka is more like Ely than any other existing god in invo demands; you very much want a lot of invo. This would explain why you find stomp and line pass's confusion underwhelming (though possibly stomp needs more numbers adjustments? Last time I used it it was different and was too strong, so Lasty changed the formula; I don't have experience with stomp after that).

Personally my biggest problem with Uka is that stomp has huge overlap with cleaving. If axes didn't exist stomp would be a lot more interesting, or I guess if you do use non-axes, except that using anything except axes or short blades with Uka is probably a mistake. Everything else worked fine when I tried Uka in the experimental branches, except I guess I didn't get to grand finale piety like at all so I never used it (I don't think it's useless if you can get there, though). I didn't find Uka weak even with the way he encourages you to fight in a normally-more-dangerous manner, though it's true he's no Trog.

---

Most of the problems with Hep either fall into crawl allies (especially permanent allies, and yes Hep's ally has almost all the problems of permanent allies) being problematic or there already being too many ally gods. I think the concept is okay but the execution is more mediocre than anything. It also doesn't help that monsters have really weird scaling (the knight starts off strong but then it basically never improves in damage as the game goes on, so it becomes useless for damage after a certain point). But the concept doesn't interest me too much anyway so I don't have much more to say.

---

I think both of these gods are much, much better designed than Pakellas and also Gozag. I won't elaborate on Gozag here for my own reasons, but Pakellas's entire idea is awful.

---

Re: Nemelex: He should use invocations (not evocations) and the deck system is really bad, but I still like the idea of a god that gives you semi-random on-demand effects. I can't defend the actual implementation of Nemelex though.


Great contribution! Many thanks to you, its obvious that you put a lot of time and thought into making a proper response to thread.

I disagree about the invocations on nemelex bit, but I do agree with the rest of your statement on him(certain aspects of the deck system desperately need attention, I agree).
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Post Thursday, 26th May 2016, 22:11

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

Gods using evocations for powers is pretty much unacceptable in current crawl since evocations are already too powerful. It probably shouldn't happen anyway, considering there is a skill that is designed for gods to use instead. If Nemelex never used decks in the first place he would never have had evocations as his skill and everything about Nemelex would thus be better.

Like, if you suggested Makhleb use evo instead of invo, people would just laugh you out of town.

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Post Thursday, 26th May 2016, 22:51

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

crate wrote:Gods using evocations for powers is pretty much unacceptable in current crawl since evocations are already too powerful. It probably shouldn't happen anyway, considering there is a skill that is designed for gods to use instead. If Nemelex never used decks in the first place he would never have had evocations as his skill and everything about Nemelex would thus be better.

Like, if you suggested Makhleb use evo instead of invo, people would just laugh you out of town.


I've had a change of heart.

I never thought of it in terms of evocations and being kind of overpowered(which they are).
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Post Thursday, 26th May 2016, 23:07

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

Siegurt wrote:Just for clarification, is your contention that the mentioned effects are bad (like none of them should be in the game at all) or that is is bad that we have that many different effects (cognitive overload/ confusing to explain and it document) or that it is bad that only worshippers of one good can access those effects?

Or perhaps you meant something else or some combination of the above?
all 3, though I think a few of the destruction effects are ok, also orb of electrocution would be cool to reintroduce as a spell, but crawl devs love allies so replacing cbl isn't going to happen
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Post Thursday, 26th May 2016, 23:52

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

crate wrote:there is a skill that is designed for gods to use instead.

What about Kiku and corpse delivery? I assume it should similarly be based on invo instead of necromancy.
DCSS: 97:...MfCj}SpNeBaEEGrFE{HaAKTrCK}DsFESpHu{FoArNaBe}
FeEE{HOIEMiAE}GrGlHuWrGnWrNaAKBaFi{MiDeMfDe}{DrAKTrAMGhEnGnWz}
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Post Friday, 27th May 2016, 00:06

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

Kiku directly gives you things that use necro skill, so it's not unreasonable to base kiku powers on necro skill instead of invo. That said, moving corpse drop, torment, torment resistance effectiveness to being based on invo instead of necro/piety is also fine, perhaps I'd like it more.

Decks basically only exist for Nemelex to gift (and you want to remove Nemelex giving items if you can anyway) so shifting Nemelex to invo instead of evo does nothing to Nemelex directly except make him a god that uses the god-skill instead of a god that uses a non-god skill for no reason. I think that evocations in particular is problematic in current crawl for balance concerns, also.

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Post Friday, 27th May 2016, 17:35

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

I STILL think the way to fix Nem is to remove cards, and have him offer 2-4 abilities at any given time dependent on piety, and you can pay piety to shuffle them. Boom. Literally every problem solved.
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Post Sunday, 29th May 2016, 01:59

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

Hep is certainly way too strong in it's current form. It's an infinite, permanent ally that resummons at no cost after a short time.

I propose that the Ancestor should have major reprocussions if it dies. Something like causes a single targeted torment like effect to the player, or massive piety loss. Or even put the player under penance.
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Post Sunday, 29th May 2016, 02:37

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

Xion350 wrote:Hep is certainly way too strong in it's current form. It's an infinite, permanent ally that resummons at no cost after a short time.

I propose that the Ancestor should have major reprocussions if it dies. Something like causes a single targeted torment like effect to the player, or massive piety loss. Or even put the player under penance.

I strongly disagree. Bringing one reasonably strong ally to a fight is weaker than plenty of currently existing god abilities (such as the ones that let you bring half a dozen strong allies to a fight), so it's fine to have no penalty for letting the one ally die over and over.

Trying to keep crawl allies alive is also a pain in the ass sometimes, and a big cost for its death would make it almost unusable in actually dangerous fights. Say what you want about permanent allies, but if the point of Hep is to be a permanent ally god, it should probably let me use my permanent ally in fights where I actually need it. It would be better to nerf Hep in other ways if it's too strong. Making the ally weaker, or gifting it later, or making revival xp-gated would be better solutions.

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Post Sunday, 29th May 2016, 02:45

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

Yeah the fact that the ally dying is only sort of a penalty instead of a big penalty mitigates somewhat the permanent-ally-and-healing problem that other permanent allies have. (It's still a problem, but it's smaller, and this is one you can't really solve entirely except by removing permanent allies, so this is probably as good as you get.)

Forcing the player to rest until both the player and her hep ally are fully healed would be really annoying, since 5 doesn't work. Even if you make the ally heal very quickly it's still a problem, such as in the case where the player took no damage at all.
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Post Sunday, 29th May 2016, 02:57

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

The ally already regenerates quickly. Nearly any situation that would require you to rest would let the spirit be back in fighting shape.
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Post Sunday, 29th May 2016, 03:12

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

"such as in the case where the player took no damage at all"
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Post Sunday, 29th May 2016, 04:38

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

OP is bang-on about Ukayaw. These issues were figured out during testing in experimental branch, if not before (but probably not before, since the god's details came out with the branch.) This pattern follows other gods who were pushed to trunk to hang around for a while, broken and identical to their last experimental version, and only later got fixed. I don't understand the logic of increasing the scale of testing after a major issue is identified but before it is patched up. Is there something fun about watching complaints multiply and form a chorus?

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Post Sunday, 29th May 2016, 14:04

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

HG, there isn't likely any malicious intent. The people developing the gods do so on their own spare time, for no material reward. It's quite possible that once a problem is identified it takes time to consider, implement and off-line test a solution before pushing it live. There can be any number of private reasons for development taking a seemingly long amount of time.

I have no problem with half-baked or even downright problematic features in trunk. As it is, trunk is pretty conservative. I'd strongly prefer it if stuff got fixed properly before going stable though.

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Post Sunday, 29th May 2016, 15:41

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

I mostly think there should be some improvement over the usual command interface, because it doesn't work for a permanent ally, if a permanent ally is now (again) a thing in DCSS. For example, the necessity to 't'ell to attack every single dangerous enemy who appear in LOS is most annoying and stupid. It would be much better if it would be possible to set a standard behaviour - like "rush to everything appears asap", "stay close to me but attack with spells asap", "don't attack until I do" and so on.

I tried Hepliaklqana with Felid and I want to say that lack of those commands is good because there is a cost for telling your allies to attack or retreat, especially when you are very stealthy and squishy. Also I like that there are no separate commands for the permanent ally so when you tell your zombies, simulalcra or spectrals go attack something, the ancestor joins them but you still have a way to recall him via ability.
The ancestor adds a new play style, now it is possible to have a character who does not have a way to kill all monsters, for example, it alone killed a Juggernaut zombie and together with some simulacra killed Jorry.
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Post Monday, 30th May 2016, 08:11

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

ukajaw is dope af. Works really well on clearing stuff, especially with high regen. 3-4h for a 15 runer and a zigg.
http://underhound.eu:81/crawl/morgue/Ar ... 164329.txt

Heplia on the other hand isnt that good, but sure is unique
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Post Monday, 30th May 2016, 08:49

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

Just noticed this:
  Code:
  1636 | D:3      | Found an opulent altar of Gozag.
  1640 | D:3      | Found a basalt altar of Yredelemnul.
  1642 | D:3      | Found a shadowy altar of Dithmenos.
  1643 | D:3      | Found a stormy altar of Qazlal.
  1645 | D:3      | Found a white marble altar of Elyvilon.
  1645 | D:3      | Found a sparkling altar of Nemelex Xobeh.
  1645 | D:3      | Found an oddly glowing altar of Pakellas.
  1645 | D:3      | Found a hide-covered altar to Ukayaw.
  1645 | D:3      | Found a deep blue altar of Sif Muna.
  1646 | D:3      | Found an iron altar of Okawaru.
  1647 | D:3      | Found a shattered altar of Ashenzari.
  1648 | D:3      | Found a shimmering altar of Xom.
  1649 | D:3      | Found a glowing silver altar of Zin.
  1650 | D:3      | Found a glowing golden altar of the Shining One.

Why is it altar to Ukayaw? A minor bug, I assume, but I would have thought that "altar of" would always go together and the god name just be appended there...
DCSS: 97:...MfCj}SpNeBaEEGrFE{HaAKTrCK}DsFESpHu{FoArNaBe}
FeEE{HOIEMiAE}GrGlHuWrGnWrNaAKBaFi{MiDeMfDe}{DrAKTrAMGhEnGnWz}
{PaBeDjFi}OgAKPaCAGnCjOgCKMfAEAtCKSpCjDEEE{HOSu
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Post Monday, 30th May 2016, 11:25

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

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Post Monday, 30th May 2016, 16:43

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

I've won with both Help and Ukawaii in experimental, but I don't remember any impressions I had. However, I'm playing now with Help and one thing I immediately noticed is that you get the ancestor as soon as you join the god. This is unlike pretty much every other god in the game (except for Nemelex, maybe I'm forgetting some other god which does that). It's not like that ancestor is even weak - she solo gnolls for me, some other annoying or strong monsters. Maybe that's a bit too good? Maybe I'm wrong?

Edit: wow, ancestor starts with rF+, rC+ and SInv? What happened to remembering the rings?

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Post Monday, 30th May 2016, 20:32

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

dpeg wrote:Other gods that try and dominate your game: Cheibriados, Qazlal, Nemelex and, to a lesser extent, Beogh.
? Nemelex leaves you completely alone and is not even noticeable unless and until you decide to use a deck, and you are given full control over how you use decks; this makes Nelemex by far the least intrusive of all gods.
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Post Monday, 30th May 2016, 21:30

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

HardboiledGargoyle wrote:
dpeg wrote:Other gods that try and dominate your game: Cheibriados, Qazlal, Nemelex and, to a lesser extent, Beogh.
? Nemelex leaves you completely alone and is not even noticeable unless and until you decide to use a deck, and you are given full control over how you use decks; this makes Nelemex by far the least intrusive of all gods.


I agree, I would put Jiyva, Gozag, Pakellas, and Trog (edit: and maybe TSO) ahead of Nemelex and Beogh in terms of "dominate your game" in the sense of forcing you to play differently (P, T, and 1 only for some characters/playstyles). Nemelex and Beogh would be more on par with Yred, Fedhas, or Ashenzari: you are strongly encouraged to play differently, but don't have to.
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Post Monday, 30th May 2016, 22:13

Re: My 2 cents on new gods

Ru in my experience has lead to the least amount of change in gameplay for all the characters I've used him with. Which is ironic considering he is the god of 'sacrifice'.

Maybe I just don't Ru right though.
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