New god proposal

[d3k0]

There are only two spots left on the grand alphabet of the gods (from Ashenzari to Zin): just I and P are missing.

So I think this is one of the last chance to bring into the game a true hunter god.

So, here's to you Ishtar (name to be changed), the God of the hunt and of the wilderness.

I., the god of the hunt and of the wilderness

Appreciates:
- killing big creatures with a ranged weapon

Deprecates (small piety loss):
- killing creatures with magic / wands / rods
- your allies dying
- eating permafood (I. wants you to hunt for your own food)

Prohibites (excommunication):
- wearing artificial armour (I. wants you to hunt for your own armours), so allowed only robes, animal skin, all hides (troll, dragon...)

Granted powers:

  Code:

   *:
      passive: aspect of the owl, slight stealth boost (similar to ring of stealth)
   **:
      ability: give me ammo! (similar to trog, but on request) [costs: small piety]
      (type based on skills, maybe less likely - or impossible - to have "branded")
   ***:
      passive: ears of the wolf: similar to Antennae 1
   ****:
      build trap [costs: big piety, hunger]:
         net trap
         needle trap
         [...others?]
   *****: 
      ability: eye of the hawk (hunger, 4MP, requires being stationary)
         next ranged attack will be 3 x damage, chance of stun target
      ability: call of the wild (hunger, small piety but see below)
         fills area with plants and calls 3-9 friendly animals, with type and number raising with piety
         remember that I. deprecates if your allies die, so if you use this ability like a "big panic button" you'll lose a lot of piety
   ******:
      passive: camouflage:
         while being stationary, your stealth increases over time
      passive: thrill of the hunt
         while being stationary, every killed enemy gives a +slaying bonus (like song of slaying), the bonus resets when you move (obviously a cap is needed)



I. piety does NOT decrease with time (hunters are patient).

What do you think? It should be similar to trog but with strong focus on ranged.
As a side effect (but plase, do NOT discuss on this point, just on god design) ammo might be removed from Oka or Trog gifts.

I wanted to insert also a PProj bonus, but I changed my mind, because it should not be "too easy".

What do you think?

[duvessa]

Why do you think this god would improve the game?

[chequers]

Building traps will lead to crazy luring, see oklob farms.

Also why does the god only benefit ranged combat? The conduct does not prevent using untrained bow only for the killing blow, which would be tedious.

Is the armour prohibition anything but lore negatively affecting gameplay?

If you gain slaying by standing still but also stealth, players will be incentivised to stay still while continuously shouting / zapping loud wands to lure the whole level towards them.

[Fingolfin]

Is the armour prohibition anything but lore negatively affecting gameplay?

That's called a god conduct. Zin forbidding mutations is nothing but lore negatively affecting gameplay

[watertreatmentRL]

Yes, the Zin conduct should be removed. Similarly, new pointless conducts should not be added.

[Fingolfin]

I disagree. Lore and flavour are important. They are what makes the difference between crawl being a game or a math problem.

Edit : sorry for the off-topic post.

[watertreatmentRL]

I would remind you that the most popular and interesting games historically have been toward the abstract end of the scale. For example, games played with playing or tarot cards, the vast majority of board games, crosswords, sudoku and other paper and pencil puzzles, digital puzzle games e.g. tetris, etc. Dungeons and dragons is very much an aberration in its reliance on "flavor" and is not very widely accepted precisely because of the goofy flavor and complex rules that come out of this design-for-flavor mindset. Even CRPGs sensibly strip the silly rules down to a bare minimum for playability and while CRPGs are reasonably popular, they are generally less so than ones that take greater mechanical advantage of the video game medium, e.g. platformers and FPSs.

This is all just to say that the aesthetic sensibility represented by design-for-flavor is deeply unpopular outside of certain small enclaves. For all this talk about math problems, the fact is any game that doesn't have a significant aspect of physical ability or real time execution is essentially a math problem, no matter how much "lore" you dress it up in. This would include any turn based game, for example.

Turning to the particular example of crawl, however oozing with flavor early versions are thought by some to be, the trend has been toward less flavor for its own sake and closer to abstract hack and slash. It's been a story of pretty consistent improvement, in spite of occasional mechanical missteps.

To tie this back to the OP, the proposal strikes me as an exercise in design-for-flavor. Okawaru already provides good support for a ranged playstyle without all the cute stuff.

[mkraemer]

It's generally problematic to build gods parallel to species' capabilities. This would be the centaur god as Makhleb is the deep dwarf god. I don't think this is a good direction to go from a gameplay perspective. The aim should be to make gods orthogonal to other axes as far as possible to maximize the feasible variety.

[d3k0]

replying to duvessa:
you can make (theoretically) a magic-only character, and also a melee-only character.
You can decide to kill all things with a zap, or to kill everything with an axe. Wheter it's optimal, it's another question, but the mechanics allows for it.
But, at the present moment, you cannot decide to kill everything with arrows, because you simply do not have enough arrows.
You have to think what to kill and what not to kill, you have to preserve arrows, you have to kill easy enemies with something else.
This is the only way I thought that makes a full-ranged-character-and-only-ranged viable.
The other one, is removing ammo mulch (that I hate, but that's another problem...).

In the past years no-one has seriously looked at a "ranged-only" characters. In crawl, ranged is seen just as a supporting thing. Sometimes powerful, sometimes stronger that your weapon ability, but always as support.

This is a god choice that makes ranged attacks your main (and only, if you want) source of attack.

It does not add anything really new, but it adds depth making full-ranged a viable choice.

[duvessa]

But, at the present moment, you cannot decide to kill everything with arrows, because you simply do not have enough arrows.

But this isn't true. Okawaru and especially Trog already provide enough ammo to do exactly this.

[d3k0]

But, at the present moment, you cannot decide to kill everything with arrows, because you simply do not have enough arrows.

But this isn't true. Okawaru and especially Trog already provide enough ammo to do exactly this.

Maybe I miss something, but if you try to go this way you find that in crowded areas (Orc, for example) you ends up without ammo.
If you use just yout ranged weapon, I mean. No melee weapons.

[chequers]

I'm not really convinced that "you can't go pure 100% ranged because Trog doesn't gift enough ammo" is good justification for a new god. It would be simpler to make Trog's (and maybe Oka's) ammo gift stacks bigger.

[d3k0]

Yep, maybe you are right, but I already tried in various places (here, and on irc) to raise the availability of ammo, or to lower the mulch rate.
Instead, steel ammo was removed (i mean, steel as it was some time ago, with a guaranteed "no-mulch").
That's ok, I don't want to affect major gameplay, so I thought that shifting this to a completely different God, with different mechanics, could be better.
And anyway I think this new God is coooool
If I am the only one that thinks so, I can deal with that, no problems at all

I think that this God gives two new mechanics to the game: first of all, it's the only God that encourages you to wait (in terms of turns, and not in terms of game time of course). Secondly, has a good panic button (plants + animals, if coupled with PProj, is very strong) but balanced by the piety loss if you use it badly.
Moreover, it's different from Trog, in that it permits magic, but not to kill things, and if it happens sometimes you'll lose some piety but not so much.
So, you can go with support magic but not destructive magic.

I am still unsure if this new God should or not should give also gifts, but I don't want to make it too strong.

[TeshiAlair]

iirc there was a proposal a while back for a hunter god that I recall being pretty interesting because it discouraged luring- you marked a target and got perma vision of them and damage buffs, but having it go outside of Los for too long cost piety. You also got bonus piety for killing things that didn't notice you. I feel like that would be a more interesting way to do a stealth/hunter god that doesnt overly step on Dith's toes.

[d3k0]

I am open to discussion to anything that permits a full-ranged playstyle (just because I like it, of course).
The idea of "hunter's mark" (that exists in many games, for example WoW) is cool; anyway, as you said, is quite a different playstyle.
My original idea was built around not requiring so much different coding, because most of the abilities I proposed are quite simple or can be easily reworked from existing abilities.

If we want, I see Dith much much closer to a "shadow/stealth hunter" God. If Dith gifted ammo, it would be a super-cool hunter god (shadow mimic damage boost + escape utility).
If Dith gifted also needles it would be also the Assassin / needlestabber God of excellence...

[mattlistener]

iirc there was a proposal a while back for a hunter god that I recall being pretty interesting because it discouraged luring- you marked a target and got perma vision of them and damage buffs, but having it go outside of Los for too long cost piety. You also got bonus piety for killing things that didn't notice you. I feel like that would be a more interesting way to do a stealth/hunter god that doesnt overly step on Dith's toes.

That does sound cool!

From the OP I liked this most: "******: while being stationary, every killed enemy gives a +slaying bonus (like song of slaying), the bonus resets when you move (obviously a cap is needed)"

It's anti-luring and a nice contrast to the more recent high-mobility gameplay gods.

[ZipZipskins]

That does sound cool!

From the OP I liked this most: "******: while being stationary, every killed enemy gives a +slaying bonus (like song of slaying), the bonus resets when you move (obviously a cap is needed)"

It's anti-luring and a nice contrast to the more recent high-mobility gameplay gods.

It may be anti-luring, but it's pro-standing in a room and shouting.

[mattlistener]

That does sound cool!

From the OP I liked this most: "******: while being stationary, every killed enemy gives a +slaying bonus (like song of slaying), the bonus resets when you move (obviously a cap is needed)"

It's anti-luring and a nice contrast to the more recent high-mobility gameplay gods.

It may be anti-luring, but it's pro-standing in a room and shouting.

The black isn't dangerous enough to kill a worshipper who plays this way?

[ZipZipskins]

No, because it's extremely easy to exploit even a basic knowledge of noise, LoS, positioning, and exploration to provide yourself a safe kill room with rapid retreat to stairs or similar.

You'll note that all of that is significantly more tedious and spoilery than luring.

And as an added double whammy, nothing is stopping you from using this ability to lure groups down corridors and into kill areas, thus using positioning to gain the bonus AND lure foes, so it actually doesn't really address luring at all

[yesno]

it's the only God that encourages you to wait

that sounds awful... crawl in general encourages waiting a lot as it is, and it is not one of crawl's better features.