make backlit status more visible

[HardboiledGargoyle]

A lot of monsters are naturally backlit, which increases the accuracy of attacks against them, keeps them from becoming invisible, renders halo/corona/sunlight pointless, and probably does other things. The game tells you this by listing “It is outlined with light.” in the monster description screen. The “repelling/deflecting missiles” status, which is similarly important, is included in the monster’s status bar – an appropriate place to mention glow.

FR: all glowing and corona-inflicted monsters are displayed as glowing. Tint their tile/glyph with yellow, in a way identical to halos and sunlight, since halos/sunlight have an effect identical to glow. This would also be useful for noticing that your contam level is yellow, and would probably clarify the interactions between halos/glow, umbra, and invisibility.

Also, please remove the mini-halos that surround every monster that happens to fall into a halo. It is repetitive and distracting and looks weird, especially with TSO worshippers. Where else have you seen angels or whatnot put halos on everything around them, even demons? Probably keep it if the monster is holy, but that’s it.

[chequers]

Alternate suggestion: remove the M_GLOWS_LIGHT/M_GLOWS_RADIATION flags. It's just flavour really, the gameplay effect is exceedingly minor, and the flavour, as described above, is almost unnoticeable.

[andreas]

Status effects should have more than an exceedingly minor gameplay effect if they are to demand the player's attention by being included on the monster bar and look command, IMO. If HBG is right that it is important that if these effects exist, they are displayed more obviously by being listed in those places, then I think that is a good reason to prefer chequers' solution of simply getting rid of the statuses. The descriptions are a better place for this kind of flavor about how monsters appear, anyway.

e: I request you start posting these suggestions in GDD, HBG. Do I misunderstand the scope of that subforum? I thought it was meant for exactly these kinds of conversations.

[Tiktacy]

I think glowing could be more interesting. Its got potential to be something interesting, the design space is there, but I agree that if its not being tapped(and there is no plan to tap it) then it should be removed.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

GDD is really CYC Lite, and despite its pretensions, there's no comparison when it comes to the depth of discussion allowed.

Alternate suggestion: remove the M_GLOWS_LIGHT/M_GLOWS_RADIATION flags. It's just flavour really, the gameplay effect is exceedingly minor, and the flavour, as described above, is almost unnoticeable.

OK, but the same logic goes for halos, corona, yellow contam, sunlight, the acc bonus from the glow of sticky flame, maybe more. I guess, then - remove all that as well? The linear boost to accuracy breaks rod of inacc IME.

[chequers]

Halos: cool flavour, keep as is.
Corona: can't touch this until you consider AM (and I'm not going to do that here)
Yellow contam: it gives monsters an accuracy bonus against you? Remove.
Sunlight: As long as it works the same as halos I don't mind it.
Sticky flame acc: as per yellow contam.

[RBrandon]

[Magipi]

I request you start posting these suggestions in GDD, HBG.

I second that. I dunno why people are doing this, but please stop. CYC should be the place of fun, not of irrelevant rules tinkering.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

lol wow BRandon that is incredible!

[PleasingFungus]

I think glowing could be more interesting. Its got potential to be something interesting, the design space is there, but I agree that if its not being tapped(and there is no plan to tap it) then it should be removed.

What sort of things would you do with it, if you could? What interesting effects or interactions would glowing have? Sincere question.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

Sincere answer: I think +Acc is interesting. It is these kinds of thing – AC and EV, multiplicative vs additive modifiers – that complicate gameplay more organically and better than e.g. elemental resistances. Now, maybe +Acc happens to be of little relevance, and is better replaced by simply giving the affected monsters less EV. But just looking at the factors that have to be considered, and compared to the “remove” suggestion, OP
- doesn’t introduce or change mechanics, but stops hiding them,
- could help determine whether they are significant or (un)desirable (because you’ll actually see it in-game),
- gets rid of most halos and yet another status icon (the little teal oval),
- is likely no harder to implement than the recent change to how allies are displayed, and
- could even be interesting and cool to see all those monsters, glowing gloriously.
(edit: -and makes getting yellow contam more noticeable)

[PleasingFungus]

ok. i disagree with you about how interesting 'multiplicative vs additive modifiers' are in crawl, but m_glows didn't add accuracy, so it's irrelevant. i removed it.

ty all for posting, and special kudos to rbrandon for his standout contribution. Thread Locked.

[Sprucery]

Thread Locked.

Apparently I have a master key!

[Tiktacy]

I think glowing could be more interesting. Its got potential to be something interesting, the design space is there, but I agree that if its not being tapped(and there is no plan to tap it) then it should be removed.

What sort of things would you do with it, if you could? What interesting effects or interactions would glowing have? Sincere question.

One idea could be to make glowing have an effect where it will put certain debuffs on the player and also remove positive buffs like haste and invisibility. Think of it as magical energy being so concentrated that it weighs you down and sucks you dry of your positive magical enhancements. For example, there could be a glowing slime that has this effect on you when you are within LoS. Or possibly a new demon enemy with a similar effect, perhaps even pan lords could be glowing.

I think that is a far more interesting use of the "Glow Design Space" than what currently exists. It could also be tied into magical contamination effectively, although that might require changing how functions(which may not be desirable).

This was just off the top of my head, so I'm sure there are many more options worth exploring for far more creative minds than I.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

but m_glows didn't add accuracy, so it's irrelevant.

OK; I wasn't quite sure about it and assumed the more interesting variant.

There's still the halo vs corona status (we use 2 indicators for the same effect, only 1 is caused by terrain (which may be caused by a monster/player) and the other is caused by a status effect) and ambiguity of sticky flame and yellow contam (am I missing something?)

edit: halos no longer form big white circles behind illuminated monsters. Thanks!