Prevent shape changers from digesting items in the ziggurat

[eliotn]

I was on the last level of the ziggurat. I was dismayed to hear "You hear a slurping noise" when I met my enemies. I fought some shape changers, and my best guess was that they digested several items in their jelly form. As slime levels have their contents protected from these slimes, it would be best to prevent shape changers from digesting the valuable loot (there are several possible ways this can be done).

P.S. If you are wielding a holy fragile item and you cast lichform, the item will instantly be destroyed without any warning.

[Lasty]

Regarding the first issue, I don't like the idea of changing monster behavior in Zigs. It might make sense to change how the loot gets placed within levels, but I don't have an opinion there.

Regarding the second issue, that sounds like a good candidate for a mantis report.

[duvessa]

Just remove item eating altogether except for Jiyva worshippers. It doesn't do anything worthwhile, Crawl already has time pressure to finish levels via random monster generation.

[dynast]

I would be glad to see shapeshifters no longer turn into jellies or eyes. Its fine to have them in the game just for flavor but their current relevant aspect is random paralyze/malmutate, random item destruction and pissing off jiyva worshippers.

[PleasingFungus]

i hate to say it, but i agree with minmay here. 'monsters will eat items, but only if you haven't ever seen them' is an insane mechanic. how would a new player learn that? how would it make any sense to them? (how would it make sense to us?)

i think some levels having bonus time pressure (e.g. timed portals) can be fun, but jelly eating doesn't work for that in its current form.

e: i'd also be fine with letting jellies eat seen items again, but that's probably not going to happen.

[Tiktacy]

e: i'd also be fine with letting jellies eat seen items again, but that's probably not going to happen.

Why in the name of Trog do slimes and jellys NEED to eat items?

It doesn't even make sense in the context of flavor(acid doesn't work like that and most people know that). At least when item destruction was in the game is sort of made sense because it required the player to know how to properly create a stash free from jellys(although this kind of gameplay has been largely shunned these days, it was very much part of the game back then). Now, it serves no purpose and even creates problems in several parts of the game.

Not blaming you Fungus, or any of the devs really, I imagine once it eventually gets brought up its removal will be unanimous after some discussion. I'm just ranting because just seeing artifacts of item destruction within the game makes me sick.

[dpeg]

'monsters will eat items, but only if you haven't ever seen them' is an insane mechanic.

It is extremely marginalised now, and mostly invisible (apart from the slurping). Instead of throwing it out [1], one could build something around it. For example, some levels could have a jelly generator [2], which we may or may not announce upon level entry. And that provides lots of slurps, and hopefully a motivation to explore slightly faster than the usual slow, methodical style.

[1] I'd like to keep jelly eating even in the current, awkward form, because it makes Jiyva consistent.

[2] Lemuel in his greatness made such a jelly generator once. I don't know if it is still in the game; I've never met in an actual game; and it may have dispersed its jellies non-awake. However, I would definitely be willing to (re)visit that and inject some fresh jellies.

[PleasingFungus]

'monsters will eat items, but only if you haven't ever seen them' is an insane mechanic.

It is extremely marginalised now, and mostly invisible (apart from the slurping). Instead of throwing it out [1], one could build something around it. For example, some levels could have a jelly generator [2], which we may or may not announce upon level entry. And that provides lots of slurps, and hopefully a motivation to explore slightly faster than the usual slow, methodical style.

[1] I'd like to keep jelly eating even in the current, awkward form, because it makes Jiyva consistent.

i don't think that making the mechanic 'less marginalized' will help. as long as it's something that the player can never directly perceive, it'll remain a bad mechanic. i like time pressure, but as minmay noted, we have other, better ways to introduce time pressure into levels.

re [1], note that jiyva is *already* inconsistent - seen items are only eaten when you're under jiyva.


if we want to re-add some 'jelly flavour', one thing we could do is make jellies eat projectiles (ammo/nets) that hit them. certainly not necessary, but could be cute

[HardboiledGargoyle]

re [1], note that jiyva is *already* inconsistent - seen items are only eaten when you're under jiyva.

yeah, it is more consistent if jellies normally don't eat unseen items, because then it's like your Jiyva powers are enabling jellies to quickly eat everything

[PlatinumSpider]

Why in the name of Trog do slimes and jellys NEED to eat items?

Jelly's eat things because they are based off slime/jelly monsters in D&D that did that, though usually they had a type of material they did not eat that was left inside them as loot. Maybe if could be that if you kill a slime that ate something within a certain time it droops it as loot?