God Conducts (was: Spellbinder + Okawaru = Tragedy)

[Shard1697]

if we remove oka ally conduct, please also remove Dith's horrid fire conduct

[Siegurt]

if we remove oka ally conduct, please also remove Dith's horrid fire conduct

Well, to be fair, there are very very few ways to accidentally cause fires, oka can get pissed because you forgot to use . Instead of f for targeting, the only "unintentional" way to piss off dith that i know of is to fire lightning bolts at trees (although that does make being a black draconian wierd sometimes)

I would actually rather gods just generally suppress or prevent effects they don't like, rather than getting upset about it.

[Shard1697]

if we remove oka ally conduct, please also remove Dith's horrid fire conduct

Well, to be fair, there are very very few ways to accidentally cause fires, oka can get pissed because you forgot to use . Instead of f for targeting, the only "unintentional" way to piss off dith that i know of is to fire lightning bolts at trees (although that does make being a black draconian wierd sometimes)

I would actually rather gods just generally suppress or prevent effects they don't like, rather than getting upset about it.

It doesn't matter if it's accidental or not, it's annoying and stupid and not based around balance considerations or anything. The flavor doesn't even make much sense.

[Siegurt]

if we remove oka ally conduct, please also remove Dith's horrid fire conduct

Well, to be fair, there are very very few ways to accidentally cause fires, oka can get pissed because you forgot to use . Instead of f for targeting, the only "unintentional" way to piss off dith that i know of is to fire lightning bolts at trees (although that does make being a black draconian wierd sometimes)

I would actually rather gods just generally suppress or prevent effects they don't like, rather than getting upset about it.

It doesn't matter if it's accidental or not, it's annoying and stupid and not based around balance considerations or anything. The flavor doesn't even make much sense.

Yeah originally it was dith not liking "light" because he liked "darkness" but since "light" isn't really a definable crawl thing, they made it fire.

While the thematic justifications are weak, i am really more concerned about how the comduct fits into the game as a whole, than the theme.

I can certainly see an argument against god conducts, generally. But i don't think dith's conduct is any more annoying and stupid than for example, TSO disliking poison and stabbing.

[Shard1697]

I don't think it's as bad as the stabbing thing(just suppress stabs, please) but it's certainly worse than the easy-to-avoid poison thing.

we've written about it before and I don't quite have the energy to reiterate, so I'll just put these here:

Remove the fire conduct. It doesn't change the way you play at all except for making some of your loot unusable at random.

i don't think that's what the word 'random' means.

"Arbitrary", then, since it's not really a balance consideration(fire items/spells specifically are not better than, for example, ice items/spells, so fire's not banned to balance Dith's abilities)

Especially since it cares only about Fire, and not other sources of light. Dazzling Spray is allowed, Corona is allowed...

As are thunderous bolts of lightning. Part of me thinks then that this discrepancy should be addressed in the other direction and make all these other sources of light bad conduct.

It was like this for a while, and then changed to what it is now, because that was even more arbitrary (bolt of lightning made light and was Bad, but conjure ball lightning was chill?)

Then CBL should have been made bad conduct too? And corona and dazzling spray and all that. I'd prefer if the flavour was actually consistent. However many spells you disallow, it can't be as restrictive as Trog. Buff Dith if he needs it.

Okay that sounds good until you realize that a lot of the shit in crawl doesn't exist in real life and deciding whether or not it makes light is completely arbitrary. Like, does IMB create light? When I wield a weapon of freeze, it "glows with a cold blue light", should those be banned? Should irradiate be banned because of the magical contamination I stick myself with? What about "clouds of seething chaos", do those involve light or not?

Even after you've compiled a grand list of everything in crawl and decided whether or not it makes light, the question of why banning these things makes Dith a better god is still unanswered. Does not letting me cast Irradiate change the way I play? What is good about having Dith ban freezing weapons from me?

If I remember correctly, Dith's conduct was basically added solely for the sake of adding a conduct, there wasn't really any gameplay reason behind it besides "conducts are neat, let's add a conduct," and that's a pretty terrible reason for it, in my opinion.

Conducts that affect the way you play the game in interesting ways are neat. But I think it's exceedingly rare for Dith to do that. I feel like the vast majority of the time, Dith's conduct affects me in one of two ways:

1. I rely heavily on fire, so choosing Dith is out of the question. Thus, a potentially interesting character choice is not available.
   
2. I do not rely on fire, so it has little-to-no bearing on my choice of whether or not to worship Dith. Some completely arbitrary (from a gameplay standpoint) items and spells will not be available to me for the rest of the run. Most of these spells and items are redundant with other, similar spells or items, so this does not significantly affect my playstyle.

Overall, Dith's conduct just feels arbitrary and pointless. It doesn't affect the way I play the game or restrict my character in any interesting ways. Most of the time, it just does nothing, or it takes a choice that might have been interesting ("Do I want to worship Dith with my DEFE?" or "Do I want to learn this fire spell/use this fire item?") and makes it not interesting instead. There's never a point where Dith's conduct makes me seriously consider how it's going to affect my playstyle in a meaningful way.

If we need a flavor-based reason why the goddess of shadow would be okay with light and fire, just consider that light casts shadows. Light is not an opposite for shadow; it is a source of power as well as a potential threat. All the more reason for her followers to take control of it.

Re: Arrhythmia,

Point well taken. Then the best way forward seems to be not to go all in on this current conduct, but get rid of it or think of a better, more internally consistent one with interesting gameplay ramifications.

Why does Dith need a conduct? That was part of the point I wanted to make in my post: Dith is a perfectly good god design without a conduct, and adding a conduct for the sake of adding a conduct just seems silly. Most other gods with conducts or drawbacks have that as the core of their design. The good gods are an exception, but the good god are extremely flavor-focused, especially TSO and Zin.

Trying to add a conduct to Dith just for the sake of having a conduct feels like bad game design. Dith wasn't designed with a conduct in mind (like I said, I remember it being added part way through just because people liked the idea of gods having conducts, and "no light" made thematic sense). Dith wouldn't be overpowered with no conduct. There is no reason that the fire conduct needs to be replaced. It can be removed.

This isn't to say that it isn't possible to give Dith a cool, meaningful conduct that really adds to the god's design, or that we shouldn't discuss it. I just think "Should the fire conduct be removed?" and "Are there interesting conducts that could be added to Dith?" are entirely unrelated discussions, because there's no particular reason Dith needs to have a conduct.

if this seems like a lot of words, just be glad we didn't have to go through all this again!
sometimes I feel like posting on tavern is a sisyphean ordeal, everyone comes to a solid conclusion most are pleased with and then months later we've forgotten about it and need reminding

[Dioneo]

I'm personally rather fond of these kinds of small flavour-features and conducts; one can of course argue which specific features are "worth it", but I'd hate to see the game wholly streamlined and stripped of all its quirks and personality. Gods shouldn't just be bundles of abilities and special conducts are a great way to introduce some character into the game.

I'm not personally bothered by the seeming inconsistency of Dithmenos, but if it''s a problem for most people, we could just come up with some new justification. There are many reasons why a god would hate fire.

[Shard1697]

I do not care nearly so much why Dith hates fire, I care that Dith hates fire. Changing the flavor would be a bandaid solution because the flavor is not the biggest problem, I think it is a dumb and arbitrary restriction that does not really add anything to gameplay, and is at most mildly annoying.

Again, Quazifuji's post:

If I remember correctly, Dith's conduct was basically added solely for the sake of adding a conduct, there wasn't really any gameplay reason behind it besides "conducts are neat, let's add a conduct," and that's a pretty terrible reason for it, in my opinion.

Conducts that affect the way you play the game in interesting ways are neat. But I think it's exceedingly rare for Dith to do that. I feel like the vast majority of the time, Dith's conduct affects me in one of two ways:

1. I rely heavily on fire, so choosing Dith is out of the question. Thus, a potentially interesting character choice is not available.
   
2. I do not rely on fire, so it has little-to-no bearing on my choice of whether or not to worship Dith. Some completely arbitrary (from a gameplay standpoint) items and spells will not be available to me for the rest of the run. Most of these spells and items are redundant with other, similar spells or items, so this does not significantly affect my playstyle.

Overall, Dith's conduct just feels arbitrary and pointless. It doesn't affect the way I play the game or restrict my character in any interesting ways. Most of the time, it just does nothing, or it takes a choice that might have been interesting ("Do I want to worship Dith with my DEFE?" or "Do I want to learn this fire spell/use this fire item?") and makes it not interesting instead. There's never a point where Dith's conduct makes me seriously consider how it's going to affect my playstyle in a meaningful way.

If a god is to have a conduct, they should have a good reason for it. Chei's conduct is good and meaningfully changes gameplay. Qaz's conduct is a bit too harsh atm because of how extreme the noise is, but if toned down it would be good(and either way meaningfully changes gameplay). The part of TSO's conduct where they prohibit necromancy is flavorful, meaningful(because necromancy is so strong) and less annoying than the stabbing thing. Dith's fire conduct not only is weird flavor-wise, but more importantly doesn't really change gameplay in an interesting way.

[Siegurt]

I do not care nearly so much why Dith hates fire, I care that Dith hates fire. Changing the flavor would be a bandaid solution because the flavor is not the biggest problem, I think it is a dumb and arbitrary restriction that does not really add anything to gameplay, and is at most mildly annoying.

Again, Quazifuji's post:

If I remember correctly, Dith's conduct was basically added solely for the sake of adding a conduct, there wasn't really any gameplay reason behind it besides "conducts are neat, let's add a conduct," and that's a pretty terrible reason for it, in my opinion.

Conducts that affect the way you play the game in interesting ways are neat. But I think it's exceedingly rare for Dith to do that. I feel like the vast majority of the time, Dith's conduct affects me in one of two ways:

1. I rely heavily on fire, so choosing Dith is out of the question. Thus, a potentially interesting character choice is not available.
   
2. I do not rely on fire, so it has little-to-no bearing on my choice of whether or not to worship Dith. Some completely arbitrary (from a gameplay standpoint) items and spells will not be available to me for the rest of the run. Most of these spells and items are redundant with other, similar spells or items, so this does not significantly affect my playstyle.

Overall, Dith's conduct just feels arbitrary and pointless. It doesn't affect the way I play the game or restrict my character in any interesting ways. Most of the time, it just does nothing, or it takes a choice that might have been interesting ("Do I want to worship Dith with my DEFE?" or "Do I want to learn this fire spell/use this fire item?") and makes it not interesting instead. There's never a point where Dith's conduct makes me seriously consider how it's going to affect my playstyle in a meaningful way.

If a god is to have a conduct, they should have a good reason for it. Chei's conduct is good and meaningfully changes gameplay. Qaz's conduct is a bit too harsh atm because of how extreme the noise is, but if toned down it would be good(and either way meaningfully changes gameplay). The part of TSO's conduct where they prohibit necromancy is flavorful, meaningful(because necromancy is so strong) and less annoying than the stabbing thing. Dith's fire conduct not only is weird flavor-wise, but more importantly doesn't really change gameplay in an interesting way.

Ok, so dith's conduct: forbids the use of one spell school, forbids the use of a few evokables, forbids a particular weapon brand.

TSO's conduct: forbids the use of two spell schools (poison and necromancy) forbids the use of a few evokables, forbids a couple weapon brands (draining, pain, venom), also forbids stabbing

Those seem *very* similar to me, if anything dith seems like a watered down version of tso's conduct. I dont see how you can argue that dith has a non game changing conduct while tso has a game changing one.

Are you saying that necromancy is something that every character would want some of if they aren't using a god that forbids it, is necromancy magic somehow inherently better than fire magic?

Would Diths conduct be better if he forbid say, fire *and* air magic, as well as electrical and fire brands, and evokables that had fire and electrical effects?

Also a chunk of your copypasta was referring to the inconsistencies when dith didn't like "light" which are no longer relevant to the current god.

[duvessa]

Are you saying that necromancy is something that every character would want some of if they aren't using a god that forbids it, is necromancy magic somehow inherently better than fire magic?

I'm not Shard1697 but I say both of those things

[Dioneo]

I do not care nearly so much why Dith hates fire, I care that Dith hates fire. Changing the flavor would be a bandaid solution because the flavor is not the biggest problem, I think it is a dumb and arbitrary restriction that does not really add anything to gameplay, and is at most mildly annoying.

If it's really that trivial then I see even less reason to remove the conduct. It introduces a nice bit of flavour to Dithmenos and (according to you) doesn't impact gameplay in any major way, I'd say that's a win. Your point seems to be that purely thematic features are not "needed" unless they noticeably change gameplay but you could just as well say the opposite; if it adds some interest or character to the game without shaking things up too much then surely there's no reason not to have it in the game?

[Arrhythmia]

Are you saying that necromancy is something that every character would want some of if they aren't using a god that forbids it, is necromancy magic somehow inherently better than fire magic?

Yes, because Necromancy has much, much better spells in it then Fire Magic does (e.g., Death's Door, Revification, Regen, are all easily in the top 10 spells in the game, but I struggle to think of a Fire Magic spell that would breach the top 10).

e: cflame's pretty freakin' good and probably has a place there

[Shard1697]

I do not care nearly so much why Dith hates fire, I care that Dith hates fire. Changing the flavor would be a bandaid solution because the flavor is not the biggest problem, I think it is a dumb and arbitrary restriction that does not really add anything to gameplay, and is at most mildly annoying.

If it's really that trivial then I see even less reason to remove the conduct. It introduces a nice bit of flavour to Dithmenos and (according to you) doesn't impact gameplay in any major way, I'd say that's a win. Your point seems to be that purely thematic features are not "needed" unless they noticeably change gameplay but you could just as well say the opposite; if it adds some interest or character to the game without shaking things up too much then surely there's no reason not to have it in the game?

Because it's irritating and removes character options. You cannot cast fireball as a Dith follower, but you are allowed to cast throw icicle, lightning bolt, battlesphere etc.just fine. Why limit character build choices like this if there's no good reason for it? It's not as if fireball or bolt of fire are inherently better than, eg, bolt of cold and other non-fire damage spells, so forbidding them isn't for the purposes of character balance and it's not as if fire damage spells are hugely different from non-fire damage spells in terms of how you use them. It just means you don't want to start as FE and go Dith, but it's fine to start as IE and go Dith. Why? Because of arbitrary flavor limitations, nothing to do with the power or gameplay or either of these spellbooks. Just "this god is obviously terrible if you rely on flame spells", which makes not choosing that god an obvious choice-or, if you are already following the god, you ignore all flame spells in favor of non-flame spells, which aren't worse or all that different for the most part, so that's also an obvious choice.

Also I do not think it's a nice bit of flavor that adds interest/character to the game. I think it is purely annoyance.

Are you saying that necromancy is something that every character would want some of if they aren't using a god that forbids it, is necromancy magic somehow inherently better than fire magic?

Yes, of course. If you are trying to win, on what character that can get animate skeleton, corpse rot, and animate dead, would you not want to get these spells? Especially the first two which are complete no-brainers. And that's not all, why wouldn't you want to get regeneration on almost every character? For high level spells, you have a spell which heals you fully, a spell which literally makes you invincible, and Infestation which demolishes most everything once you get it-and at slightly less high level, death channel, which lets you double the number of allies you get from slain enemies and plow through levels once you have it. Fire magic is much worse than necromancy, and much, much less appealing to a broad range of characters.

[Dioneo]

Because it's irritating and removes character options. You cannot cast fireball as a Dith follower, but you are allowed to cast throw icicle, lightning bolt, battlesphere etc.just fine. Why limit character build choices like this if there's no good reason for it? It's not as if fireball or bolt of fire are inherently better than, eg, bolt of cold and other non-fire damage spells, so forbidding them isn't for the purposes of character balance and it's not as if fire damage spells are hugely different from non-fire damage spells. It just means you don't want to start as FE and go Dith, but it's fine to start as IE and go Dith. Why? Because of arbitrary flavor limitations, nothing to do with the power or gameplay or either of these spellbooks.

Also I do not think it's a nice bit of flavor that adds interest/character to the game. I think it is purely annoyance.

I suppose that I value "flavour" a little more than you, to the point of accepting certain "annoyances", I get the feeling that such things are rather undervalued by many posters here, but I'm of course not blind to the possible gameplay problems of such things.

Just out of curiosity, what kinds of conducts do you find interesting/acceptable? Trog entirely disallows magic, for example, is that better? Are you ok with the dietary restrictions of Zin? If you had to preserve some kind of conduct for Dithmenos, how would you like it to operate?

[HardboiledGargoyle]

I believe "flavour" is extremely important but Dith's fire conduct is still not good. The flavor's too wonky and the limit against going xxFE^Dith is more than an annoyance, as it blocks off an otherwise viable and potentially interesting build, without actually dictating a play-style the way TSO does. It's like how Beogh only accepts hill orcs.

Zin's dietary restrictions don't have much of an impact. That's a kind of conduct Dithmenos could have. Like if Dith only hated Corona and Eos - virtually irrelevant.

[Shard1697]

Just out of curiosity, what kinds of conducts do you find interesting/acceptable? Trog entirely disallows magic, for example, is that better? Are you ok with the dietary restrictions of Zin? If you had to preserve some kind of conduct for Dithmenos, how would you like it to operate?

Like I mentioned before, Chei's conduct is good(flavorful and important to the gameplay design of the god), and Qaz's is ok(only problem being it's too punishing, which can be fixed by just lowering the amount of noise it makes). Trog's conduct is also good and the god would not make sense without it.

Zin's diet restriction is kind of lame and I would prefer if it didn't exist, but it's not as bad as Dith fire conduct because it's so meaningless. Yred still bans use of holy weapons iirc, which is a pointless conduct. TSO's conducts aside from anti-necromancy should go IMO.

[Siegurt]

Just out of curiosity, what kinds of conducts do you find interesting/acceptable? Trog entirely disallows magic, for example, is that better? Are you ok with the dietary restrictions of Zin? If you had to preserve some kind of conduct for Dithmenos, how would you like it to operate?

Like I mentioned before, Chei's conduct is good(flavorful and important to the gameplay design of the god), and Qaz's is ok(only problem being it's too punishing, which can be fixed by just lowering the amount of noise it makes). Trog's conduct is also good and the god would not make sense without it.

Zin's diet restriction is kind of lame and I would prefer if it didn't exist, but it's not as bad as Dith fire conduct because it's so meaningless. Yred still bans use of holy weapons iirc, which is a pointless conduct. TSO's conducts aside from anti-necromancy should go IMO.

So what would it take it juice diths conduct up to meanigful, rather than annoyance levels? Add more schools? Change them, something else? You seem to draw the conclusion that since dith's balance doesn't reside in it's conduct it should be removed, but if it was intended to be a balancing factor, but isn't shouldn't we fix that? The power level can easily be tuned up or down, but designing a good, interesting, workable conduct is hard.

Would a more meaningful conduct with a more powerful dith be more interesting and better for the game?

[Shard1697]

That depends on how it was implemented.

There's no reason dith needs to have a conduct, and I don't think it should be looked at as "how to make a conduct work for dith". The obvious forward step here is removal of the fire conduct, then eventually, if and only if a good conduct is thought up for the god, that can be used-but in the meantime, Dith would be better off without one.

[Quazifuji]

So what would it take it juice diths conduct up to meanigful, rather than annoyance levels? Add more schools? Change them, something else? You seem to draw the conclusion that since dith's balance doesn't reside in it's conduct it should be removed, but if it was intended to be a balancing factor, but isn't shouldn't we fix that? The power level can easily be tuned up or down, but designing a good, interesting, workable conduct is hard.

From what I remember, it wasn't intended to be a balancing factor at all. Maybe someone else can dig up the original thread where Dith was proposed and created, but as far as I remember, it basically started with people thinking that conducts were cool and wanting to add a conduct just for the sake of having one. Banning light was a natural fit flavor-wise, but it turned out to be too spoilery, so they simplified it to a fire ban. I don't remember balance ever entering the equation at all, it was all a mix of flavor and people just liking the concept of giving the god a conduct.

Also, if Dith wouldn't suddenly become overpowered without the conduct, then I don't think it matters if it was originally created for balance purposes or not. It's fully possible that the original decision to add a conduct was simply a mistake.

[Siegurt]

So what would it take it juice diths conduct up to meanigful, rather than annoyance levels? Add more schools? Change them, something else? You seem to draw the conclusion that since dith's balance doesn't reside in it's conduct it should be removed, but if it was intended to be a balancing factor, but isn't shouldn't we fix that? The power level can easily be tuned up or down, but designing a good, interesting, workable conduct is hard.

From what I remember, it wasn't intended to be a balancing factor at all. Maybe someone else can dig up the original thread where Dith was proposed and created, but as far as I remember, it basically started with people thinking that conducts were cool and wanting to add a conduct just for the sake of having one. Banning light was a natural fit flavor-wise, but it turned out to be too spoilery, so they simplified it to a fire ban. I don't remember balance ever entering the equation at all, it was all a mix of flavor and people just liking the concept of giving the god a conduct.

Also, if Dith wouldn't suddenly become overpowered without the conduct, then I don't think it matters if it was originally created for balance purposes or not. It's fully possible that the original decision to add a conduct was simply a mistake.

For reference:
OP: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=10117
The third post suggests Dith liking killing "Creatures of light" however there's no explicit mention of the conduct in forum prior to the first announced version of the god for testing, the commit that added the initial "light" conduct is here:
http://s-z.org/neil/git/?p=crawl.git;a= ... a3bdb7002f
The one where "fire" and "illuminating" were split apart was here:
http://s-z.org/neil/git/?p=crawl.git;a= ... a9add99ab7

[HardboiledGargoyle]

Trog's conduct is also good and the god would not make sense without it.

How so? Conductless Trog would be very useful to chars that lean heavily on spells, certainly more so than Okawaru. Conduct aside, Trog is one of the caster-friendlier gods. It would work, even though Trog would be even more overpowered. It would just seem a bit kooky in terms of flavor, like how Zin accepts extremely mutated chars and protects their mutations, or how you're allowed to insolently turn on and destroy the gifts Yred so lovingly bestows upon you. Nothing so much as "doesn't make sense without it".

[Shard1697]

The "even more overpowered" is what I'm referring to.

Also fwiw I think not only is it good you can attack yred's undead gifts without penance, I think no undead allies should ever turn hostile. Except for those gained by control undead, but I don't think that spell should exist.

[duvessa]

Allies shouldn't turn hostile, period. If you want an allied monster to be dead it's already really really easy to make it dead using hostile monsters or clouds or just pressing tw. All that is accomplished by allowing allies to turn hostile is that you can get screwed if you hit one by accident, which is not beneficial to the game in any way, and the conditions for angering allies are very difficult to maintain. (remember when a bunch of DsBes died because foul stench would turn BiA hostile?)

[Quazifuji]

There are also cases where you can end up turning an ally hostile without even knowing what happened. I had a recent game where I used a Nemelex summoning deck, got two Wyverns, one fell through a shaft, the others started attacking me. At no point did I use any AoE abilities or attack the second wyvern, I have no idea why it turned on me.

If it's possible to make it so allies aren't turned by "accidental" damage, then maybe that would help. But I imagine that would be a pain to program and there would be a ton of ambiguous cases, and I think it would be better to have no ally turning than to have the current case where any damage can turn them.

[Cimanyd]

There are also cases where you can end up turning an ally hostile without even knowing what happened. I had a recent game where I used a Nemelex summoning deck, got two Wyverns, one fell through a shaft, the others started attacking me. At no point did I use any AoE abilities or attack the second wyvern, I have no idea why it turned on me.

Sounds like you drew a Foxfire card, which summons flying stuff; some friendly, some hostile. Normally it still makes your situation better, but you managed to find a scenario where it makes it worse.