Increase chance of good mutation with Malmutate

[ker]

Proposal: Increase the chance of getting a good mutation when being Malmutated.

Rational: Bad mutations can change the gameplay in a variety of interesting ways, however if I see a fat stack of red on my mutations screen I'm just going to drink a potion of cure mutation to make it all go away. By dispersing good mutations among bad ones, I would feel more inclined to play on with some bad mutations least I get rid of the good ones. This would increase the variety of gameplay experiences from character to character and make the use of cure mutation potion more interesting.

Specifics: I would propose that instead of the 80% bad / 20% random mutation split Malmutate would use 50-60% bad / 50-40% good *and* bad mutation distribution. (*And*, as in, one good mutation and one bad mutation.)

[dynast]

The first part of your rational only makes sense if you forget that the player can deliberately mutate himself, which is usually what happens, and its then the malmutators job to mess up your mutation set, which covers the second half of your rational.

http://crawl.akrasiac.org/rawdata/Dynas ... 162542.txt

88532 | Pan | Gained mutation: You have an increased reservoir of magic (+10% MP). [a neqoxec]
88663 | Pan | Noticed Acidburn6's ghost (legendary GrFi)
88684 | Pan | Killed Acidburn6's ghost
88689 | Pan | Noticed Froll the pandemonium lord
88706 | Pan | Killed Froll the pandemonium lord
88756 | Pan | Got a demonic rune of Zot
88975 | Pan | Noticed Jemoney the pandemonium lord
88981 | Pan | Received a gift from Okawaru
88988 | Pan | Killed Jemoney the pandemonium lord
89209 | Pan | Found an exit through the horrors of the Abyss.
89279 | Pan | Noticed Shyplyxt the pandemonium lord
89292 | Pan | Killed Shyplyxt the pandemonium lord
89506 | Pan | Noticed Dooppas the pandemonium lord
89525 | Pan | Killed Dooppas the pandemonium lord
89699 | Pan | Found an exit through the horrors of the Abyss.
90235 | Pan | Noticed Klaepi the pandemonium lord
90240 | Pan | Killed Klaepi the pandemonium lord
90461 | Pan | Noticed Faomuol the pandemonium lord
90468 | Pan | Received a gift from Okawaru
90636 | Pan | Noticed Qeileplu the pandemonium lord
90649 | Pan | Killed Qeileplu the pandemonium lord
90773 | Pan | Found an exit through the horrors of the Abyss.
91014 | Pan | Noticed Biugiag the pandemonium lord
91027 | Pan | Killed Biugiag the pandemonium lord
91296 | Pan | Found an exit through the horrors of the Abyss.
91311 | Pan | Noticed Premore the pandemonium lord
91321 | Pan | Killed Premore the pandemonium lord
91797 | Pan | Received a gift from Okawaru
91899 | Pan | Gained mutation: You are robust (+10% HP). [a neqoxec]
91960 | Pan | Noticed Stosoyri the pandemonium lord
91975 | Pan | Killed Stosoyri the pandemonium lord
91987 | Pan | Got a pair of ichor-stained gloves {god gift}
92120 | Pan | Identified the +0 pair of gloves of the Peculiar Demons {Str-4} (Okawaru gifted it to you in Pandemonium)
92156 | Pan | Gained mutation: You are partially covered in icy blue scales (AC +1). [a neqoxec]

Making it so that you can get more good muts instead of bad is not interesting, its amusing that you may end up with a good mut instead of bad because its rare. The rarity of mutations is what makes them interesting, not their effects alone. In the case you really consider mutations that interesting you can always play Xom or try Jiyva.

[ker]

The first part of your rational only makes sense if you forget that the player can deliberately mutate himself, which is usually what happens, and its then the malmutators job to mess up your mutation set, which covers the second half of your rational.

So is the mutations part of the game supposed to be completely optional? You don't get that many potions of beneficial mutation (in my experience) so the only reason (I can think of) you would have more then 1 or 2 good mutations is if you deliberately take the 50/50 of mutation potion/chunks ( - which would be a decision based on wanting to engage with the mutation game as 50/50 would(?) (on average) leave you power neutral). I'm ok with that; I just didn't realize that was the case.

Making it so that you can get more good muts *instead* of bad is not interesting

Emphasis mine. Just to be clear, that is not what I'm suggesting. I'm suggesting you get more good muts while at the same time also getting a bad one (i.e. you get 2 mutations in one go 50-40% of the time).

[dynast]

So is the mutations part of the game supposed to be completely optional?

Kinda, now that cure mut pots are more common you normally end up with a game where you either save cure muts to cure bad muts from malmutators(dont play the mutation minigame) or cure a bad mutation gamble from mut potions/chunks(play it).