Make some gods unavailable

[VeryAngryFelid]

Suggestion. When entering Temple, player gets Ctrl-o window updated and some gods are displayed as "unavailable in this game". It means that not all gods can be worshiped.

Reasoning. DCSS is a roguelike and one of the features of roguelikes is adaptation to what dungeon throws at you. There is no adaptation when you can plan to join some god (Oka for weapon gifts, TSO for extended, Kiku for pain brand, Makhleb for heal-on-kills, Trog for MR++ etc.) right when choosing a character. Some characters are so powerful that they don't mind fully exploring D1-D9.

How it will improve the game. More decisions, more unusual combos.

Edit. Inspired by adjacent thread about too many gods in crawl.

[Sar]

That would lead to people quitting at turn 0 because their favorite god isn't in the game. What IMO should happen is that no god altar should be guaranteed in the 2-9 D/Temple range. That range should still have the most altars, but some of them might be placed later... much later.

[Bart]

Since people are willing to fully clear first nine levels to find desired god, what will stop them from restarting the game if their 'optimal' god is not available in the temple?
It's not that people care too much about win ratio anyway, and those who do will take the first reasonable god they find in the dungeon.

[Sar]

The fact that they invested time in it, perhaps. Unless they are speedrunners, I guess.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Nothing can stop such players of course. There is nothing we can do here, like we can do nothing about players who quit if they don't find vampiric demon whip before Lair.
The point is to make game better for players who play for win (if crawl was a game for players who play for fun, Temple would always have all gods).

[4Hooves2Appendages]

I'd argue that starting with a specific god in mind (tournaments and challenges occupy a niche space here) is bad play. In the majority of cases a good/decent altar crops up way before temple. Not taking that good/decent god is usually a mistake, as far as winrate is concerned.

So, let people deliberately weaken their character for a specific god if they want to. Maybe gods could be more spread out over the entire dungeon or something.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Also one of my intentions is to help new players make decisions when entering Temple. Temple can have very many good gods and it is overwhelming, I am experienced player and still spend too much time thinking which god to pick.

[TeshiAlair]

I think it would be more interesting if all overflow altars had challenge vaults so that you either got an easy temple vault or had to work for your favorite.

Examples which come to mind are the various trog/oka vaults with enemies (though these should be buffed) and the vehumet altar covered in moving flames.

[duvessa]

If faded altars are going to be in the game, every game should have a 10% (or 1% or 50% or whatever) chance of replacing the first altar with a faded altar, and generating no further altars for the rest of the game. Then the faded altar is an actual decision (will a random god be better than atheist for the whole game) instead of a blatantly terrible, pointless option that shouldn't be in the game.

[TeshiAlair]

I agree, I my Q and Ctrl buttons are not worn down and I'm just itching to wear them out until they are little nubs.

Thankfully, that idea will never happen.

Also faded altars are in my top ten of best things to happen to crawl

[infinitevox]

I agree, I my Q and Ctrl buttons are not worn down and I'm just itching to wear them out until they are little nubs.

Thankfully, that idea will never happen.

Also faded altars are in my top ten of best things to happen to crawl

[PowerOfKaishin]

Why can't I play the game the way I want to? If I play OpTm a lot and I want to worship Gozag all the time, what's wrong with that? There are certain things that the player should be allowed to choose. They get to choose their race and class for instance. As of now if they're willing to wait they get to choose their god too (except Jiyva, but there is a very good reason he is not available).

If it were up to me, god choice would be available from the get go, like with race or class. God choice defines your play experience just as much if not moreso than your initial class and possibly even your race. Why can't we just choose it right away?

Also, faded altars are there for people who want a random god. Saying that they should be removed is like saying that only suggested class-race combinations should be allowed. Just because they aren't optimal doesn't mean people may not want to play them.

[Shard1697]

Why can't we just choose it right away?

Because it's often more interesting to have to find it, and be tempted by other god altars along the way. It's cool to start a game thinking "I wanna go oka" and then see a Fedhas altar early on and think "know what, actually that'll work well" and have an advantage because of how early you got it.

[duvessa]

If you want a random god then pick a random god just like people who are "willing to wait" pick a non-random god. Or just worship at the first altar you find, you don't even have to roll a die that way. The only thing faded altars accomplish is suggesting the option.

[PowerOfKaishin]

Why can't we just choose it right away?

Because it's often more interesting to have to find it, and be tempted by other god altars along the way. It's cool to start a game thinking "I wanna go oka" and then see a Fedhas altar early on and think "know what, actually that'll work well" and have an advantage because of how early you got it.

Play that way if you want to play that way, but there's nothing wrong with some players willing to wait.

If anyone in this topic supports the OP's idea, answer for me this question: why do we have the options of choosing our race and class?

[dpeg]

When the first additional gods were devised, there was a question how to add them: putting every altar in the Ecumenical Temple (the canonical idea) would mean that we have to change temple maps every time a god is added (by that time, we already had lots of temple maps). The suggestion to leave the ET at 12 altars, and thereby make (current number - 12) gods potentially unavailable [this is exactly like the OP] met stubborn resistance.

The most radical proposal, by the way, came from Lemuel: he suggested to remove the Temple, and only have random altar vaults.

In the end, we could agree on overflow altars (after bickering for a while what a decent depth range for overflow altars would be). This is why the first additional gods (Lugonu and Beogh) were not Temple gods -- they could be added without solving the Temple question.

In my opinion, any of the choices (including god selection at start) would make for a reasonable game. In the end, someone has to make a decision, and that's exactly what has happened.

[VeryAngryFelid]

I see, I should have known the idea was not new. The thread can be closed/moved I think.

[Wahaha]

A little offtopic but why don't faded altars give a starting piety bonus again?

[neil]

A little offtopic but why don't faded altars give a starting piety bonus again?

They do, except for Ru (where they instead give you an early opportunity to sacrifice) and pietyless gods like Gozag and Xom. However, it's only 20 piety; the Monk bonus by comparison is (generally) 35 piety.

[Lasty]

Also there's no bonus piety for Ukayaw, since it would decay almost immediately anyway.

[4Hooves2Appendages]

Also there's no bonus piety for Ukayaw, since it would decay almost immediately anyway.

Maybe Ukay could instead get a floor raise. Piety never decays below arbitrary small number (less than [*.....] of course). Same for Ukay monks I guess.

[dpeg]

4H2A: There shouldn't be any longterm advantages from either random altars or being Monk.

[neil]

4H2A: There shouldn't be any longterm advantages from either random altars or being Monk.

I somewhat disagree WRT random altars. There are long-term disadvantages to taking them if there are any gods that would be bad for your character (and usually there are). A random chance between a short-term advantage and a long-term disadvantage is hard to make into a rational bet. Not impossible, of course.

[dpeg]

neil: Yes, one can argue about the random altars. But if it's a bad that really won't fly, you can simply change gods. (I forget: is wrath milder these days if you never had high piety? This should definitely be a thing.)

[PleasingFungus]

neil: Yes, one can argue about the random altars. But if it's a bad that really won't fly, you can simply change gods. (I forget: is wrath milder these days if you never had high piety? This should definitely be a thing.)

A big part of the point of god wrath is to make 'choosing a god' consequential, rather than something you do willy-nilly. Why would you want to weaken that? Do we have a great desire to encourage d:4 god swaps?

[Shard1697]

Isn't wrath much weaker if you're below a certain XL?

[savageorange]

Shard: pretty sure that's not true.
There is some implication here:

https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php? ... cept:wrath

That the severity of wrath scales with the total amount of piety gained with the god, which is consistent with my experience IIRC.

It's unclear whether the above proposal was actually implemented, though (just like almost everything else on the dev wiki)

EDIT: looks like wrath does (sort of) scale with XL, only for summon-type wrath (eg trog, oka, dith) -- see dpeg's post with the commit log here : viewtopic.php?f=8&t=10865 . Wrath depletion is dependent on gaining XP.
It's unclear from the thread whether piety enters into it at all.

[dpeg]

big part of the point of god wrath is to make 'choosing a god' consequential, rather than something you do willy-nilly. Why would you want to weaken that? Do we have a great desire to encourage d:4 god swaps?

Certainly not willy-nilly, but I don't see why Trog should react in the same way to a deserter who never reached *** as opposed to someone who got three runes and a dozen awesome gifts.

It's not particularly urgent, though.

[4Hooves2Appendages]

Isn't wrath much weaker if you're below a certain XL?

As far as my own code-diving goes, wrath scales with player XL. For example Makhbleb will not send executioners after players below XL 3 or so. (Not much of a consolation...)

I like strong god wrath for two reasons. It encourages sticking with a god that might not be the best (anymore). It adds a sense of real danger to abandoning a god. In practice a strong character at XL27 can shrug off most wrath too easily already. The first time I abandoned Trog I was scared. I've abandoned a few gods and never died to wrath, so now it feels like no big deal anymore.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

I think OP is a good idea (it could also make non-D altars interesting sometimes) and would work well with the introduction of an otherwise weak Zealot class that starts with any god the player chooses. You can't guarantee yourself both Gozag and a book of changes, but you can guarantee yourself one.

just worship at the first altar you find...The only thing faded altars accomplish is suggesting the option.

Serious feature request: the first and only the first altar you find always gives that god's quote, to suggest this: "I know many secrets...", "Take it easy.", if you meet an orc priest before finding an altar, Beogh cries "Drown the unbelievers in a sea of blood!", etc.

[4Hooves2Appendages]

But doesn't a faded altar then turn into a specific altar, but players now have to look up the god message?

[HardboiledGargoyle]

I'm not talking about faded altars. I mean something like

  Code:

Found a sparkling altar of Nemelex.
"It's all in the cards!"
Found an opulent altar of Gozag.
Found an ancient bone altar of Kikubaaqudgha.
An adder comes into view.

Can't be too pushy or the player might think that god would give extra starting piety.

[Hurkyl]

In my opinion, the only reasonable options for a game are:

• Basically all gods are available each game
• Most gods are unavailable each game

I feel like the game has been designed and/or balanced with the first paradigm in mind; it would probably be way to much work to shift that balance over to the other paradigm. An example of what would need to change:

Conjurations as a main DPS works for a character that starts with that in mind and picks a god that supports it. Conjurations as a main DPS would not work for an "average" character who discovers that Vehumet is one of their three god choices. If such a change were made, Conjurations would need to be overhauled so that characters to find Vehumet as their choice can actually pick him and adapt wholeheartedly to the style of play he supports, and then backgrounds and item availability would have to be rebalanced, et cetera.

[Quazifuji]

Personally, I like the current system. I'd even like Jiyva to be added to the regular Temple god pool, or at least make Jiyva overflow altars much more common or even guaranteed.

Ultimately, it comes down to this: While improvising is often optimal in DCSS, and frequently very fun, sometimes I just want to play the game a certain way for whatever reason. Maybe I want to try to get a win with Pakellas, or I'm just in the mood to play a Ru character, or whatever. And making a character with a specific god in mind and playing for 15 minutes only to discover that the god's not available that game, and being forced to choose between playing a character that isn't the one I wanted to play or Ctrl+Qing just isn't fun.

I think the current overflow altar system still rewards being open to a wider variety of gods. Waiting until D9 to get the exact god you wanted is almost never optimal, and picking the first useful altar you find frequently is. And if there were a movement to make waiting a bit more dangerous - maybe reduce the number of altars in the temple, and make it so more games have at least a few gods that don't show up until level 8 or 9, would be fine. I wouldn't even object to the Temple being removed altogether, and the altars just scattered roughly evenly through D2-D9. I like some gods being more convenient than others. But I also really like the idea of every god being guaranteed as an option by D9 (besides Jiyva, but like said, I dislike Jiyva's unavailability). If a player wants a specific god strongly enough that they'll wait until D9 to get them when they could have taken a perfectly strong god on D2 or D3, they should be allowed to get that god.