Vampiric weapons, revamped

[and into]

Vampiric weapons have some problems:

1.) Too strong.

They were nerfed a while back to trigger 3/5 of the time, rather than 4/5. That helps, but I've still found vamp weapons to be too good. Direct healing effects are for the most part limited to consumables and gods in DCSS, and for good reason. With a good vamp weapon in hand, I find that the situations in which good tactics actually matter are substantially reduced. Play doesn't become completely mindless, of course, but the closest DCSS comes to being a "tabfest," in my experience, is when a character with decent HP and defenses finds a good vamp weapon.


2.) Hunger cost.

I'm honestly not sure why this cost exists for vamp weapons. To prevent frequent swapping? Some species don't care about the hunger cost, so they can do so anyway, as can most species with gourmand amulet. To prevent swapping in at low HP? Most species can do this in dangerous areas if you take the trouble to stay at "full" or, if you are cool with longer swap and got fruit/jerky, just below full. In either case, doesn't prevent swapping, just makes it much more annoying to do. To balance vamp weapons with certain strategic costs? You can still do ranged combat (throwing), most evocations, and as long as you don't swap *constantly* the cost is not sufficient to prevent normal to semi-frequent use of blowgun+curare and rods, because there is plenty of food in your average game.

At the same time, hunger cost means that you get prompts when wielding or unwielding vamp, which is a big interface nuisance, and having an item that provides a real advantage if you are willing to stay at "full" or above is a huge nuisance for most species, as well. The hunger cost doesn't prevent in-combat swapping; the annoying interface that comes with the hunger cost just makes it a big hassle.


3.) Makes DD into a different species.

This is a much more specific problem, but I'll mention it nonetheless. One can argue about whether or not Deep Dwarves are a good idea for a species in the first place, but if their whole raison d'être is to move HP toward being a limited, strategic resource rather than only a tactical one, it is a bad idea to have a weapon brand that effectively negates this distinctive trait. (While the flavor of vampiric weapons healing Deep Dwarves makes better sense, functionally in terms of design this seems to me a little like allowing mummies to quaff potions, if and when they wield a weapon of chaos.) That vamp heals DD also means there are situations in which you might want to go beat up on weak stuff with any vamp weapon on hand (even a crappy one) in order to heal. The spell vampiric draining has similar problems. In both cases there is a simple solution, fortunately: Vamp weapons and spell vampiric draining should not heal DD.

(Slight tangent: Gods also loosen the DD conduct greatly, but whether one likes it or not, the dev team often allows divine powers to be exceptional in such cases; cf. bend space on formicids, potion petition on mummies.)


So, here's what I'd propose:

1.) If you want to discourage someone from swapping to vamp when low on HP in combat, then the hunger cost is a very bad way to do this, and should be replaced by something with less interface hassle. In other words, this new feature would need to have a cost that does not require a prompt. I think it would be sufficient if vamp weapons simply had to "power up" for a period of time upon being wielded, similar to gourmand. ("A vampiric thirst is awakened in you / Your thirst grows stronger / You are ready to feast on your enemies' power.")

2.) A further nerf to 50% trigger rate for vamp weapons should be considered. (Quick aside: If you wish to make the unrandart Leech more distinctive, let it have a higher vamp rate (mentioned in the description). Or let Leech restore some MP along with HP. It is not a very unique unrandart at the moment...)

3.) Vamp weapons and vampiric draining spell should not heal Deep Dwarves.


EDIT: A suggestion I made regarding Leech is already in the game, apparently. Thanks for pointing that out, Sar.

[PowerOfKaishin]

Why not make it trigger 100% of the time but greatly reduce the HP regained so that the HPA (health per auts) is less than it is now?

[and into]

Why not make it trigger 100% of the time but greatly reduce the HP regained so that the HPA (health per auts) is less than it is now?

That could be fine, too, but currently the design for vamp has tended towards, "give HP proportional to damage, which can be quite a lot of HP, but only triggers some of the time," so I made my proposed nerf along the lines of the current design.

(I'd be interested to hear from any dev about why they went that way with vamp weapons, if it was a conscious decision; it may just be "that's how it has always been.")

[dynast]

Vampiric weapons have some problems:

1.) Too strong.

You can say that about pretty much anything in this game that doesnt require you any skill to benefit from. Elec/poison/ranged weapons, GDA, some evocables. I personally dont see that as a problem, since not having to train those skills in order to benefit from them allows me to dump the exp into spells which are much stronger than anything!

1.) If you want to discourage someone from swapping to vamp when low on HP in combat, then the hunger cost is a very bad way to do this, and should be replaced by something with less interface hassle. In other words, this new feature would need to have a cost that does not require a prompt. I think it would be sufficient if vamp weapons simply had to "power up" for a period of time upon being wielded, similar to gourmand. ("A vampiric thirst is awakened in you / Your thirst grows stronger / You are ready to feast on your enemies' power.")

Wrong assumption, you dont swap to vamp to recover hp, you use vamp to not let your hp fall too low(you were the who said the game becomes a tab fest, why would you assume otherwise afterwards?). You swap from vamp to kill things that arent "vampable", or simply to a more effective type of weapon(poison on spiders, holy on crypt, etc).

[duvessa]

Vamp is not especially strong nowadays imo. 60% trigger chance is not high and then you also have to get a good healing roll, meanwhile you're doing less damage than you would with any other brand except antimagic and holy. I think speed and antimagic are both better overall, and elec and draining are often better depending on the weapon.

The hunger cost is just stupid, the intent can't have been to prevent "degenerate swapping" because undead are allowed to swap them freely. It's just another transparent, unsuccessful attempt to make food act as something other than a clock, and like the rest of those attempts it should be removed.

[Sar]

I find that the situations in which good tactics actually matter are substantially reduced.

but that's the best thing about them!

f you wish to make the unrandart Leech more distinctive, let it have a higher vamp rate (mentioned in the description).

Leech (and Vamp Tooth) already have 100% chance to trigger vamp.

[Shtopit]

It was meant to slaughter unwary players when they tried to chop up corpses the weapon went back in their unsated hands, and they instantly died. It does give a very small advantage to undeads, though.

[phloomp]

Agree that vamp can be too strong on some weapons. Alternate fix: prevent vampiric brand on two-handed weapons.

(Extreme fix: prevent multiplicative brands on two handers and additive brands on one handers. Dagger of elec is also too strong)

[genericpseudonym]

I find that the situations in which good tactics actually matter are substantially reduced.

but that's the best thing about them!

f you wish to make the unrandart Leech more distinctive, let it have a higher vamp rate (mentioned in the description).

Leech (and Vamp Tooth) already have 100% chance to trigger vamp.

Leech has 100% chance to trigger, while the vampire tooth still has 60% chance but always heals you for 100% of damage done.

[ololoev]

GDA

Tssss, don't start "to GDA or not to GDA" dispute.

[4Hooves2Appendages]

I don't think vamp is particularly strong in the current incarnation. Other weapons kill a lot faster and resting is often available. In areas where resting isn't so good (hell/pan/abyss I guess) vamp also has fewer useful targets. A nerf isn't necessary.

The hunger cost is a hassle and probably the main reason why I don't usually bother with vamp. I swap weapons frequently (different brands, rods, launchers) and vamp makes this quite tedious. Straight up removal of the hunger threshold would be great. Some kind of ramp up over time effect wouldn't bother me, but I don't think it's necessary.

I don't feel very strongly about the deep dwarf interaction. Perhaps they should be changed to have inherent vamp?!

[nago]

The point of OP I think are worthy a commit:
1) Remove food cost. The build-power based on time doesn't work because there would be no problems to wait until 100% power outside combat. It should be related on experience gained\damage dealt and so on. Or just add another *drain penalty, it's used everywhere nowadays and thematically fits - just say "the weapon feeds on your energy or whatever".
2) DD. Remove DD. Or at least make vamp useless for them.

Overall I agree that vamp is strong but not *so* strong. Right now I tend to prefer on a melee brute because it makes me easier to tab, but if playing optimally I'd have to prefer other brand in most situations. And still for a good amount of build I tend to use not vamp-weapon because of the switch limit - e.g. rod user, magic with enhancer staves, stabber and so on. It depends on how much I've trained the skills "I'd lose", how strong is that vamp weapon, how bad would be the substitute and other evaluations, but I had various games where not-using a good vamp weapon was clearly the best choice.

[ion_frigate]

Ignoring the debate about whether or not they actually need a nerf, I'd like to suggest a general possibility for nerfing overly strong weapon brands: give them a malus to incoming XP. This XP penalty should be incurred when you hit with the weapon (a sort of virtual negative XP pool*, so you can't circumvent it by swapping/casting for the last hit), maybe something like 20% of the monster's XP value if you kill it entirely with the vampiric weapon.

*The idea, in case it isn't obvious, is that if you take half of an orb of fire's (8519XP) health with the vamp weapon, you have to kill 852XP worth of monsters before you start gaining experience again. Monster regeneration could make the penalty more severe, but I don't think that's a huge problem. Alternately, the XP penalty could be based on health recovered through the weapon.

[genericpseudonym]

Ignoring the debate about whether or not they actually need a nerf, I'd like to suggest a general possibility for nerfing overly strong weapon brands: give them a malus to incoming XP. This XP penalty should be incurred when you hit with the weapon (a sort of virtual negative XP pool*, so you can't circumvent it by swapping/casting for the last hit), maybe something like 20% of the monster's XP value if you kill it entirely with the vampiric weapon.

*The idea, in case it isn't obvious, is that if you take half of an orb of fire's (8519XP) health with the vamp weapon, you have to kill 852XP worth of monsters before you start gaining experience again. Monster regeneration could make the penalty more severe, but I don't think that's a huge problem. Alternately, the XP penalty could be based on health recovered through the weapon.

Using that mechanic to balance vamp weapons is just as stupid and inelegant as using it to balance summons.

[goodcoolguy]

I don't know how you play crawl, but the way I usually do it, a "tabfest" is a reasonable description for significant percentage of the game. I think this is a good thing, because the game is too damned long for what it is. You got early dungeon, where you might die, followed by lair, the rest of dungeon (lair part 2), then a lair branch, then lair branch two, then vaults 1-4, then vaults 1-4 part two, then vaults 5, then zot. I mean, it's not hard to see that this is about twice as long as it needs to be, so anything that automates it has got to be good. Tab, for the lack of a better word, is good.

As for DD, if the idea of DD isn't to have an indestructible heavy armor melee species, I don't know what the point is. You already have a religion that totally breaks the hard-to-recover-hp concept. If anything, vampirism gives you that 1 in 1000 chance that you get a great early item that lets you do a DD of something other than makhleb.

[Rast]

3.) Makes DD into a different species.

I'm only going to comment on this part.

Every* DD build is about making DD into a different species. Vamp weapon, vamp spell, gods that heal you, gods that regenerate you, gods that give you infinite charges from your wand of healing... so the problem isn't vampire weapon, but the DD concept as currently implemented.

[njvack]

One can argue about whether or not Deep Dwarves are a good idea for a species in the first place, but if their whole raison d'être is to move HP toward being a limited, strategic resource rather than only a tactical one, it is a bad idea to have a weapon brand that effectively negates this distinctive trait.

I don't think this is what DD is for, honestly. DD limits your options in a bunch of ways; effectively "you need to find a way to make HP a tactical resource again, and pretty early in the game." I don't think there's a reasonable way Crawl can treat HP as a strategic resource, unless you want to require the most tedious "never take damage" playstyles.

But I think it's OK for vamp weapons & draining to heal DD.

[TonberryJam]

If you give a Minotaur Beserker a vamp axe it's not going to die against 99% of what crawls throws at you.
Only things I find dangerous to a strong melee with vamp branded weapon is as follows:

1. Damnation/Hell fire - This is threatening to everyone. HP depletes fast.
2. Torment - and only with packs or a strong boss nearby.
3. Poison - Surprisingly strong poison magic will wreck you. Curse you named Pandemonium Lord.

Even in Pandemonium this axe helps keep you alive while chopping away at those tormentors. Granted, it needs regeneration spell while under fire from a group.

Conclusion: You get the same results end game with other brands.

The only real strength of the Vampire Brand is that it basically makes everything up to extended a cake-walk.