Mummy Adjustments

[svendre]

I propose to change the aptitudes on mummies. More specifically change the -2's everywhere to -1's. I think it would also be nice to see a bump to necromancy aptitude, just to have them stand out a bit more.

The justification: Things have changed over time, making them so much weaker, therefore adjust them.

* The food clock used to be more harsh. In the present game, I find it is viable to even play living spell casters of Gozag. Their advantage here has been lessoned. If you do want to take full advantage of wasting turns, you still hurt piety in a lot of cases.

* Monsters don't respawn on levels like they used to. This was another advantage an undead character had previously to make up for more difficult XP curves.

* Healing wands were removed. This hurt mummies a *lot*, as you now have extremely few options for regaining life, particularly in extended.

* More enemies casting dispel undead, which is extremely harsh. It hurts, badly, and it doesn't miss. Trying to keep out of LOS of dispel undead casters is tedious. Tar went from the easiest zone as a mummy (it was extremely easy), to incredibly awful. Now, you get a howl status on you and a couple tmitzles appear and a silent specter or hell effect silence, you are royally screwed as the only thing you can safely (or even reasonably do) is try to rely on evocations. Going melee against them even as a strong melee character is often a terrible idea. I've lost a few xl27 mummies to dispel undead, it can take you down so quickly it is crazy (with no option for potion or wand). So basically, necromutate is much better now because you can turn it off - or simply not being undead and using TSO. The same applies to the tomb, it received a ton of changes so that dispel undead is present. I'm not saying yank dispel undead out, though I think it could use adjusting for balance.. just that this is another example of how mummies (and undead) were nerfed.

* Those super annoying star things in abyss which flash the screen and give living temporary mutations drain your stats to crap. It's barely feasible to take a mummy into the abyss now for long at all.. you can have your stats drained down so low, so quickly. What used to be somewhat of an advantage (avoiding mutations for stat drain at a pace you could cope with) became a liability (stats drained too quickly to cope with.) This could be fixed if temporary mutations didn't cause stat drain.

* Last but not least, mutations system was reworked and now because of the new mutation potions, it's pretty standard and easy for all living characters to run around with positive (good mutations) and few or no bad ones, which just get cleared with a few potions. Overall, mutations are a lot easier to deal with today. Mummies (I guess and ghouls?) simply miss out on the extra boosts from the current mutations system.

I like mummies because it's enjoyable to ignore eating food. Even though it isn't an advantage to not drink potions, I like the way it clears up inventory headaches somewhat. I'd just like to see the horrible xp curve fixed. If they must remain bad at a lot of things, then at least make them much better at a few things. Thanks!

[bhauth]

Just giving them better aptitudes on everything would make them more generic, IMO. I'd suggest giving them good aptitude for a couple skills, maybe +2 Necromancy and +2 Hexes.

[GuideCritic]

About mutations: potion of mutation got re-re-reworked in trunk so it is now a very very bad gamble again to drink one/eat mutagenic meat, but cMut is still gone.
So as it stands today, mutations are harder to deal with than before.

[le_nerd]

>potion of mutation got re-re-reworked and are now a bad gamble.

Disagree. If you have at least 3 !mutation you have a good chance to come out ahead of mutation roulette. The more !mutation you have the better the chances.

To the core topic, Mummies are *fine*. They are a very very hard species to play, and with reason. They dont need tweaking to make them easier.

[bel]

* More enemies casting dispel undead, which is extremely harsh. It hurts, badly, and it doesn't miss. Trying to keep out of LOS of dispel undead casters is tedious. Tar went from the easiest zone as a mummy (it was extremely easy), to incredibly awful. Now, you get a howl status on you and a couple tmitzles appear and a silent specter or hell effect silence, you are royally screwed as the only thing you can safely (or even reasonably do) is try to rely on evocations. Going melee against them even as a strong melee character is often a terrible idea. I've lost a few xl27 mummies to dispel undead, it can take you down so quickly it is crazy (with no option for potion or wand). So basically, necromutate is much better now because you can turn it off - or simply not being undead and using TSO. The same applies to the tomb, it received a ton of changes so that dispel undead is present. I'm not saying yank dispel undead out, though I think it could use adjusting for balance.. just that this is another example of how mummies (and undead) were nerfed.

I don't have much experience with Mu. But how is this different from torment against living players? It is also unavoidable and hurts badly. Torment only halves HP but doesn't require a clear line of fire, while Dispel Undead can kill you but requires a clear line of fire. Overall, I would consider Dispel Undead to be more deadly for sure, but still.

[Shtopit]

I agree that mummy feels like a relic. The inability to drink potions isn't compensated at all. Better apts are the first thing that comes to mind, and immunity to confusion is the second. Personally I think that they could also get an intrinsic "less encumbered by armour" mutation.
Mummies also don't get most of the better necro spells, so their intrinsic power up could go to a different magic school.

[pedritolo]

I see mummies as a challenge species, which I enjoy.
While I wouldn't mind if they're changed, at least lets try to keep them hardcore

[duvessa]

* The food clock used to be more harsh.

Of all the myths that get passed around about old versions, this is definitely the most baffling one to me.

[svendre]

* The food clock used to be more harsh.

Of all the myths that get passed around about old versions, this is definitely the most baffling one to me.

I can't remember off the top of my head what the reason was. I'll post it if I can recall. I'm fairly sure food was a much larger concern however, not just myth. Eating chunks, in the current version I get 60+ extra rations without purchasing them from stores. In games from past times, I had a few starvation issues and remember gauging my food stores much more closely.

[Siegurt]

* The food clock used to be more harsh.

Of all the myths that get passed around about old versions, this is definitely the most baffling one to me.

I can't remember off the top of my head what the reason was. I'll post it if I can recall. I'm fairly sure food was a much larger concern however, not just myth. Eating chunks, in the current version I get 60+ extra rations without purchasing them from stores. In games from past times, I had a few starvation issues and remember gauging my food stores much more closely.

Well, I guess it used to be possible to eat poisonous chunks.. I'm not really sure how relevant it ever was, but it was a thing. (Of course there was also a class of chunks that made you 'nauseous' once upon a time too.)

[Shtopit]

And death by blunt weapon curses.

Also loldeath by vampiric blunt weapons.

[mikee]

I can't remember off the top of my head what the reason was. I'll post it if I can recall. I'm fairly sure food was a much larger concern however, not just myth. Eating chunks, in the current version I get 60+ extra rations without purchasing them from stores. In games from past times, I had a few starvation issues and remember gauging my food stores much more closely.

Ok so it wasn't. People are apparently going to chime in with a lot of minor reasons on either side (you could drink potions for food!!) but the most likely explanation is just that you weren't as good at managing food back then.

[Shtopit]

Tactically speaking, eating during combat now takes fewer turns than it once did (except honey and fruits). I guess that a caster finding himself Starving and having to give up two turns could end up in trouble.

[svendre]

I think the change to chunks was the main reason I recall. It wasn't totally insignificant because if you ate a bad chunk, it wasn't only the loss of the nutrients from the chunk but the time it took for the nausea to wear off, so that you could try again, to get the nutrients you needed to safely proceed (particularly as a spell caster.) If you were doing something like looping an evocation, or trying to rest to full all the time between fights, it caused enough havoc to cause chunks to often rot before you could get to them, so the consequences cascaded. If you wanted reliable nutrients, you needed to use perma-food. It was annoying, and I'm glad it was changed. Currently though, you practically don't even need perma-food since you can have a stack of chunks on you pretty easily at all time and lasting between fights.

Have I improved in managing food over time, yeah probably.. but please don't tell me myths and imagination lol.. I'm certain food was a larger concern in the past than present. Is it a huge, huge, game shattering difference.. I never said that, perhaps not because starvation wasn't ever a super serious problem. It also wasn't the only reason I listed though. I think that it is likely that if a query were run to check and see statistics about percentages of starvation, you'd find many more deaths by starvation in older versions.

[crawlnoob]

But there was like, fifteen different kinds of permafood at that time, too. My inventory looked like a mini-fridge.

[Bobbunny]

+1 for Mu buffs for me. You used to be able to just scum 1000's of turns to offset the fact you're useless but scumming basically isn't a thing anymore. Awful aptitudes across the board means it's a pain to progressive past mid game (IMO, but I'm bad) unless you luck out and get iron shot/fireball from a book/vehumet. I agree that their overall magical aptitudes should be at least -1 and even necro to be positive. Hell, I think their summoning should be 0 as well. The inability to easily heal is awful and death by confusion is a bit too real of a detriment. The necro spell power is strong, but I think it could be interesting to see another extra power that they gain at XL11 or something that is could be reminiscent of death curses.

[duvessa]

I see little purpose in even discussing Mu/Vp's power right now because they're completely broken by the removal of post-level-generation spawns (you can read my complaints about this here). The ability to scum Lair was bad before, sure, but at least that only became possible once the game was already won, whereas now the optimal Mu waits for (tens of or hundreds of) thousands of turns on every level starting from D:1. The current situation is almost as bad as 0.5 and lower where you could scum D:1 forever.
Whatever is used to address this problem will have balance implications, so let's get that done first. Mu is already stronger than Na anyway IMO.

I'm certain food was a larger concern in the past than present.

Some people are certain the Earth is flat. Doesn't make it true. Food was definitely not a larger concern in the past.

[svendre]

I see little purpose in even discussing Mu/Vp's power right now because they're completely broken by the removal of post-level-generation spawns (you can read my complaints about this here). The ability to scum Lair was bad before, sure, but at least that only became possible once the game was already won, whereas now the optimal Mu waits for (tens of or hundreds of) thousands of turns on every level starting from D:1. The current situation is almost as bad as 0.5 and lower where you could scum D:1 forever.
Whatever is used to address this problem will have balance implications, so let's get that done first. Mu is already stronger than Na anyway IMO.

I'm certain food was a larger concern in the past than present.

Some people are certain the Earth is flat. Doesn't make it true. Food was definitely not a larger concern in the past.

So, your supporting detail in asserting that you are correct is that the earth isn't flat?

[njvack]

For me, food was a larger concern in the past, but it was because I was used to playing Nethack and didn't understand Crawl's food game yet. So I remember food being more important, even though it wasn't. (IIRC there used to be a boatload more permafood back when hive was a thing, anyhow.) It has been more and less complex with iterations of contaminated corpses and nausea and poisonous chunks and such, but it's never been more of an impactful system than it is now.

My big aaugh mummy thing is always the early orc wizard with throw flame.

[duvessa]

So, your supporting detail in asserting that you are correct is that the earth isn't flat?

You're making an extraordinary claim - that food was more impactful in old versions - and providing no evidence for it aside from "well, I remember food being more impactful in old versions". The burden of proof is on you.

[svendre]

So, your supporting detail in asserting that you are correct is that the earth isn't flat?

You're making an extraordinary claim - that food was more impactful in old versions - and providing no evidence for it aside from "well, I remember food being more impactful in old versions". The burden of proof is on you.

I listed many reasons for my claim... did you even read the thread? I'll copy/paste some:

I think the change to chunks was the main reason I recall. It wasn't totally insignificant because if you ate a bad chunk, it wasn't only the loss of the nutrients from the chunk but the time it took for the nausea to wear off, so that you could try again, to get the nutrients you needed to safely proceed (particularly as a spell caster.) If you were doing something like looping an evocation, or trying to rest to full all the time between fights, it caused enough havoc to cause chunks to often rot before you could get to them, so the consequences cascaded. If you wanted reliable nutrients, you needed to use perma-food. It was annoying, and I'm glad it was changed. Currently though, you practically don't even need perma-food since you can have a stack of chunks on you pretty easily at all time and lasting between fights.

You're doing exactly what you're accusing me of doing, making a claim without providing any argument whatsoever. I don't mind that you have a differing opinion or view, but I resent the insulting manner in which you injected yourself into the discussion with the earth/flat comment and refuting my opinion with "just because you say so", then accusing me of not providing any rationale.

[Stonar]

The biggest difference to my chunk management is auto butcher. I don't know if that existed before and I just didn't know about it, but that definitely improved my hunger management (not that I ever had a particular problem with it, but I end a game with 40 rations instead of 5.)

[duvessa]

I think the change to chunks was the main reason I recall. It wasn't totally insignificant because if you ate a bad chunk, it wasn't only the loss of the nutrients from the chunk but the time it took for the nausea to wear off, so that you could try again, to get the nutrients you needed to safely proceed (particularly as a spell caster.)

with the version of nausea that actually made it into the game (I'm not going to consider like, a trunk version that was on servers for maybe 2 days):
1. getting nausea from a chunk didn't make you lose the nutrition from the chunk
2. nausea only lowered the threshold at which you could eat, it didn't prevent you from eating entirely, so there was never any need to wait for it to wear off before using spells or whatever
so yeah, I'm pretty sure you're just making things up, and neither have an accurate recollection of old versions nor anything resembling actual evidence.
never mind that the game used to generate loads more permafood (hive lol) and have loads more edible poisonous corpses and corpses used to produce twice as many chunks as they do now and rings of sustenance existed and...

[Majang]

The hive was abolished some time before nausea was taken from the game. I'm with Svendre on this - in older versions sustenance management was much more of an issue, particularly for an inexperienced player as I was in those days. I just didn't know whether the permafood that generated was enough to get me through a game, so I used chunks as much as possible, even tainted ones. That led to almost endless cycles of nausea, not being able to eat the clean chunks that were there, which tended to rot before the nausea stopped, which left me with another nauseous chunk to eat, to repeat the cycle. Now I know I could have just eaten permafood, but I was always happy when I found an amulet of the gourmand somewhere, and I would not drop it for almost anything...
Another issue not mentioned so far was item weight. As an HE you just couldn't slug around all your bread rations, and eating chunks meant that you did not have to return to L2 to refill your pack all too often.

[Implojin]

ITT: People who were actually good at ancient Crawl argue with people who have a vague recollection of playing 0.5 once.

Somehow this relates to buffing Mummy apts.


P.S: Nerf Mu to -3 across the board, kthx
P.P.S: Get rid of food already for fuck's sake it's pretty settled that there are better clocks to use
P.P.P.S: This doesn't belong in GDD

[duvessa]

P.P.S: Get rid of food already for fuck's sake it's pretty settled that there are better clocks to use

It has? One of the clocks, monster spawns, was recently removed wholesale, and piety decay is being slowly eroded with the addition of more and more gods that have no piety decay. Seems like food is being established as the best available clock, if anything. And I agree with that; while chunks, spell/ability hunger, etc. really hurt food's effectiveness as a clock, it's still a million times better than piety decay, and it's better than OOD spawns just because it's more transparent.

[njvack]

And current degenerate mummy gameplay does suggest Crawl is better off with at least a nominal clock.

[Majang]

Could there not be a real clock?

I mean a simple rule like the game is lost after 60.000 turns. Each rune in your pack adds another 10,000 turns to your clock. Worshipping Chei gets some special case treatment, like it does for current scoring. Spriggans and Centaurs will have a significant advantage, Nagas and Barachim a disadvantage, but all in all, the threshold could be set in a way that everyone could comfortably win the game without rushing, but no-one could scum in any meaningful way. Now that the end-game has become shorter in a more predictable way, all this should be possible to set up easily. That could entirely remove the need for other clocks affecting the game in annoying ways.

[pedritolo]

Could there not be a real clock?

I mean a simple rule like the game is lost after 60.000 turns. Each rune in your pack adds another 10,000 turns to your clock. Worshipping Chei gets some special case treatment, like it does for current scoring. Spriggans and Centaurs will have a significant advantage, Nagas and Barachim a disadvantage, but all in all, the threshold could be set in a way that everyone could comfortably win the game without rushing, but no-one could scum in any meaningful way. Now that the end-game has become shorter in a more predictable way, all this should be possible to set up easily. That could entirely remove the need for other clocks affecting the game in annoying ways.

Frankly, I think this suggestion is better than having food in the state it's currently in. Make it based on the same player actions counter that's used for scoring, that would not favour some species over others. But maybe tighten those numbers, 90k turns for a 3-runner is just too much, no?
One problem I see with this is that it may not be easy to convey the need for urgency to a new player.
Still, I do believe that a proper food overhaul could make the game a lot more interesting. I won't derail this post further, so maybe i'll create a new one with my ideas on the subject.

[Magipi]

But maybe tighten those numbers, 90k turns for a 3-runner is just too much, no?

Quiz question: how many 3-rune wins did you have that lasted more than 90 k turns?

Spoiler: show

I think the answer is 22, although I may have miscounted.

[Sprucery]

My last 3-runer was a HOWn of Beogh, 117584 turns. The one before that, BaEn of Makhleb, 124963 turns. The one before that, HaAM of Zin, 142357 turns.

I could check more, but I'm pretty sure most my 3-runers are +90k turns.

[Shtopit]

The thing is, a clock doesn't need chunks, nor food cost for casting spells, evoking or invoking. Food could remain as pure clock, without action-derived hunger, without chunks, without hunger special for trolls, spriggans &co. Give passive eating, and the game becomes much cleaner without losing a clock.

[Implojin]

The thing is, a clock doesn't need chunks, nor food cost for casting spells, evoking or invoking. Food could remain as pure clock, without action-derived hunger, without chunks, without hunger special for trolls, spriggans &co. Give passive eating, and the game becomes much cleaner without losing a clock.

This exactly; although you'd also want to make rations slotless and add some code to autopick them at range, to fully remove player interaction with the clock.

If food is going to remain an inviolate part of DCSS out of ancient design inertia, at least clean it up.

[Majang]

But maybe tighten those numbers, 90k turns for a 3-runner is just too much, no?

Quiz question: how many 3-rune wins did you have that lasted more than 90 k turns?

Spoiler: show

I think the answer is 22, although I may have miscounted.

The 60,000 turns I grabbed from thin air, looking at how my 3-rune games turned out (I did have some above 90,000, mostly casters, who spend time getting their MP up, even when not injured). Again, this is not about turning all players into speed-runners, but to discourage them from scumming. All this would have to be negotiated to find a good balance.

[pedritolo]

But maybe tighten those numbers, 90k turns for a 3-runner is just too much, no?

Quiz question: how many 3-rune wins did you have that lasted more than 90 k turns?

Spoiler: show

I think the answer is 22, although I may have miscounted.

Fair enough, but in those games I was probably not trying in the least to be faster. A greater sense of urgency might make the game more interesting. On the other hand, I'm ok with whatever number, really.

[Magipi]

On the other hand, I'm ok with whatever number, really.

If we take the idea seriously for a moment (which we shouldn't, because it is really an awful idea), the number should be around 1 million. That rules out the most degenerate mummy strategies, while it allows genuine slow play.

[advil]

I'm not sure any hard clock seems great to me but about 20% of recent 3-rune wins are >90000 turns, probably a lot of them newer players, so that figure isn't plausible at all. If you wanted to do this (and I don't) something like 140000 turns, which eliminates about 1% of 3 rune recent wins, would be better. (For 15 rune wins, the 1% point is around 235000 turns.)

Btw, I think hellcrawl on non-casual modes is currently at a 3k turn anti-scumming clock per level (though it has gone through a bunch of tuning so I might be wrong now), which if I've counted right (probably not) is in the neighborhood of a max of 140000 turns. Personally I think a per-level clock is a much better system that just can't work in mainline crawl.

[Sprucery]

The thing is, high turn counts have nothing to do with scumming, for me personally. I don't usually do a lot of luring, for example, yet my turn counts are really high. I assume the high turn counts result from resting and autoexploring (I use the wall_bias option at a non-default value so maybe my autoexploring is slower than the default). Of course traveling to branches, shops and stash too, but I assume most people do that.

So trying to prevent scumming by limiting the turn count does not make any sense to me. Unless resting to full and autoexploring are a form of scumming.

(Of course, I always do Elf and Crypt so my 3-rune games are a bit longer than necessary because of that too.)

[duvessa]

Yes, per-level works much better.

My preferred system is a goldified "food" clock. You have some number of remaining turns, and picking up food items increases that number with no inventory interaction, just like gold. So you could start the limit at like 2,000 turns to prevent people from spending 30% of their game's turncount in early D (which is what a survival-oriented player would do if you gave them a 90,000 turn clock out of the gate), and you're free to generate large amounts of food in zigs to support indefinite megazigging. It does, of course, require removing chunks and Fedhas' fruit costs.

This also lets you have bread rations and meat rations and 10 types of fruit and beef jerky and honeycombs and royal jelly and snozzcumbers and slices of pizza, if you want, since they no longer take up inventory slots.

[Plantissue]

The anti food brigade leaps upon anything to remove food. Not that I disagree, but there doesn't seem to be a reason for mummies to scum turns anymore, so what relation does mummies have in removing food in order to to limit turns? Not to mention 90 000 turns is such a ridiculously low number. Every new player would surely have 90 000+ turns for their first win, so in effect you are asking that new players must never be allowed to win a game naturally and must suffer many losses due to the game ending prematurely through a ridiculously short timer. I think most new players would have long left from such unnatural gameplay mechanics.

[Aean]

Given the low winrate overall - let alone that among new players - we don't need to tighten the game restrictions in that fashion. Most "clocks," to the best of my understanding, have always been more an attempt to safeguard against veterans abusing game mechanics than restricting new players. An attempt to stop scumming for gear and XP, rather than a punishment for being slow, or cautious, or using auto-explore. Or even having to heal and retreat often, due to not being good at "optimal" playing. It might not be a bad thing to set a turncount clock at, say, 250k, or 300k turns, based on advil's post - enough to allow for even slow 15-runers, while minimizing scumming.

More on topic, I wouldn't be against buffing and differentiating mummies a little more. Some of the advantages of playing mummy have been weakened, and some of their vulnerabilities have been enhanced. It'd be nice for them to have a meaningful niche again. More points towards necromancy and hexes, maybe, or even the development of innate necromancy-oriented ability/abilities. Anything to encourage people to play mummies for reasons other than "I want a challenge race that's bad at everything" or "I wanted to play Gozag."

[VeryAngryFelid]

I don't see anything wrong in just removing food without any compensation. There are no spawns in trunk, there are no difficulty levels, there are scores and if a player needs every trick and 500k turns to win MiBe, it is fine and should not be punished. Score already does that. It is a single player game you know...

[VeryAngryFelid]

Anything to encourage people to play mummies for reasons other than "I want a challenge race that's bad at everything" or "I wanted to play Gozag."

As long as crawl does not have difficulty levels we need "bad at everything" race(s) IMHO

[crawlnoob]

New Race: Goblins

-3 to all apts. -20% hp. cannot cast 5th lvl spells or higher. 50% chance when using a wand, that nothing happens and a charge is wasted. starting stats of 5 str 5 int 5 dex. no stat gains except 1 bonus stat chosen by the player at 7th, 14th, 21st, and 27th lvl, player cannot choose intelligence.

[duvessa]

"Avoidance of grinding (no scumming)" is a major design goal. It doesn't matter if you think grinding is fine because of the scoring system; grinding for an advantage is supposed to be impossible, not just low-scoring.

[svendre]

This has swerved off the main topic, but I want to say that I don't think grinding and scumming have much at all to do with food. If removing grinding/scumming were to be seriously approached, it would require removing/redesigning the abyss, removing hell effects which spawn monsters around you, limiting Pandemonium to 5 levels, and limiting zigs to one (or no) runs. It would require almost a new game. Currently, I like the freedom that crawl offers.

It's not any horrible design flaw to me if someone figures out a weird way to play the game, so long as it isn't incredibly unbalanced. Once you've won the game several times, what else is there to stay interested in but to think of and attempt alternate strategies. So long as a player is enjoying themselves, I see no harm in letting players play how they wish. A tightly enforced game just means it is less interesting. If a person doesn't want to play a certain way, they have that option unless they cannot control themselves (which is another issue.) Obtaining top scores is already much of a gimmic style requiring fairly specific, limited parameters and/or luck as it stands.

I don't find grinding fun. If anything the horrible aptitudes on mummies are what encourage scumming on mummies, in order to compensate. If they have a more viable path to complete the game (even if it means a more specialized route), I think that using them to grind becomes much less enticing than simply completing the game in a more average amount of time/turns.

[VeryAngryFelid]

"Avoidance of grinding (no scumming)" is a major design goal. It doesn't matter if you think grinding is fine because of the scoring system; grinding for an advantage is supposed to be impossible, not just low-scoring.

I don't see how it is possible to grind when there is no monster spawning (except with Xom of course but then Xom has its own "Xom is bored" clock).

[Majang]

If you want to, as a mummy you can wait in a killhole until all monsters of a level happen to walk into your reach, and kill them off safely one by one. I guess that would be grinding.

[VeryAngryFelid]

If you want to, as a mummy you can wait in a killhole until all monsters of a level happen to walk into your reach, and kill them off safely one by one. I guess that would be grinding.

Many monsters are still sleeping so it won't work reliably, you still can find a sleeping Centaur with bow of flaming and die in 2 turns. Mummy has normal speed so it does not need to do the trick vs 90% monsters, it can just lure them to that killhole.