Tartarus Sorceror
Posts: 1698
Joined: Saturday, 18th June 2016, 13:57
Wednesday, 11th April 2018, 16:01
Please Change How Jiyva Works
Problem # 1 is the message spam. You receive a huge quantity of messages, about sounds, and sacrifices, and stuff, and even random communications from Jiyva. You spend a lot of time handling the message log instead of playing. It also interrupts resting and makes repeatedly "5"ing tedious.
Part of the spam are the creatures looking at you suspiciously and then relaxing. That's nice the first time you read it, but it's bad when it's repeated for every slime in a slime pack.
Problem # 2 is strictly related to the first one: it's hard to keep tabs on your mutations, because they are lost amidst a sea of messages. During a recent game, I actually noticed that there was no information when you gained Jiyva mutations. So your AC can be nuked (deformed body with pseudopods), and you may realize it too late. Beside detrimental mutations, if you don't know that you have certain mutations, you cannot take decisions based on them, which makes them irrelevant to game play.
Problem #3 is bad inventory interaction. Mutations rarely do something that inventory items don't. Elemental and magic resists, AC, SH, Gourmet, regeneration, EV, flight all do something that non-artifact items do. If your mutations are stable, you can count on them and select which items to carry. So you leave your ring of rF if you have the rF mutation. However, if they aren't stable, well, you better still carry the items around, just in case the mutations disappear when you need them!
Hunger is also a subset of this. You get nutrition when your jellies eat something. However, you don't really know if you might somehow run out of nutrition because of some edge case, like hunger ghosts, so you have to carry some food around. It would be better to simply remove hunger for Jiyva followers.
These problems are exacerbated by how inventory space is much more important for Jiyva followers; otherwise, I'd have ignored the hunger issue.
Problem # 4, the worst one, is the lag. Jiyva is is very resource intensive for the computer. I never have this kind of problem with other gods; I play locally, not online. Sometimes, you are left there for some seconds, wondering what's going on. Since the game has very few animations, it's hard to understand if you simply missed or if the game froze and is still taking your commands (which is a great way to die, once it unfreezes).
In older versions, you can't directly hit shapeshifters that turned themselves into Jiyva's minions, even though they will attack you. I had to use an axe and ctrl+arrow in a direction different from their position to indirectly kill them with cleaving. Shapeshifters in certain forms (I have tested this with shining eye and eye of draining) can eat stuff like items and doors, but only if you worship Jiyva. I didn't check if this is still the case in current versions.
Stats shuffling generally receives a bad rap, but I never noticed it having any real impact.
Some solution proposals:
Reduce the number of messages, and remove all messages related to jellies. This comprises slurping noises. Add a "hit spacebar to continue" for Jiyva mutations, and have the game actually show you what they are in the message section.
Allow the player to choose which mutations to remove, from all of them. Good/bad mutations depend on build and intent: so horns can be bad if you have good headgear, and wild/subdued magic can be good or bad depending on the spells you like using. Allow the player to remove Jiyva mutations, too, since they can give you penalties.
If Jiyva offers to remove one of your mutations to substitute it with a new one, you could get a "y/n" prompt, possibly as an ability, like Ru sacrifices. This would counter the inventory strain a bit, and would make Jiyva more unique. The same system could be applied to the shuffling.
I don't know where the lag comes from. Maybe it's the jellies. If that's the case, jellies could be substituted with random item destruction across the level, without the creature generation. It would be a pity, because they give strong flavour, but it's better than the current situation.
(If you had a feeling of déjà vu, it's because this message comprises large parts of older posts.)
Part of the spam are the creatures looking at you suspiciously and then relaxing. That's nice the first time you read it, but it's bad when it's repeated for every slime in a slime pack.
Problem # 2 is strictly related to the first one: it's hard to keep tabs on your mutations, because they are lost amidst a sea of messages. During a recent game, I actually noticed that there was no information when you gained Jiyva mutations. So your AC can be nuked (deformed body with pseudopods), and you may realize it too late. Beside detrimental mutations, if you don't know that you have certain mutations, you cannot take decisions based on them, which makes them irrelevant to game play.
Problem #3 is bad inventory interaction. Mutations rarely do something that inventory items don't. Elemental and magic resists, AC, SH, Gourmet, regeneration, EV, flight all do something that non-artifact items do. If your mutations are stable, you can count on them and select which items to carry. So you leave your ring of rF if you have the rF mutation. However, if they aren't stable, well, you better still carry the items around, just in case the mutations disappear when you need them!
Hunger is also a subset of this. You get nutrition when your jellies eat something. However, you don't really know if you might somehow run out of nutrition because of some edge case, like hunger ghosts, so you have to carry some food around. It would be better to simply remove hunger for Jiyva followers.
These problems are exacerbated by how inventory space is much more important for Jiyva followers; otherwise, I'd have ignored the hunger issue.
Problem # 4, the worst one, is the lag. Jiyva is is very resource intensive for the computer. I never have this kind of problem with other gods; I play locally, not online. Sometimes, you are left there for some seconds, wondering what's going on. Since the game has very few animations, it's hard to understand if you simply missed or if the game froze and is still taking your commands (which is a great way to die, once it unfreezes).
In older versions, you can't directly hit shapeshifters that turned themselves into Jiyva's minions, even though they will attack you. I had to use an axe and ctrl+arrow in a direction different from their position to indirectly kill them with cleaving. Shapeshifters in certain forms (I have tested this with shining eye and eye of draining) can eat stuff like items and doors, but only if you worship Jiyva. I didn't check if this is still the case in current versions.
Stats shuffling generally receives a bad rap, but I never noticed it having any real impact.
Some solution proposals:
Reduce the number of messages, and remove all messages related to jellies. This comprises slurping noises. Add a "hit spacebar to continue" for Jiyva mutations, and have the game actually show you what they are in the message section.
Allow the player to choose which mutations to remove, from all of them. Good/bad mutations depend on build and intent: so horns can be bad if you have good headgear, and wild/subdued magic can be good or bad depending on the spells you like using. Allow the player to remove Jiyva mutations, too, since they can give you penalties.
If Jiyva offers to remove one of your mutations to substitute it with a new one, you could get a "y/n" prompt, possibly as an ability, like Ru sacrifices. This would counter the inventory strain a bit, and would make Jiyva more unique. The same system could be applied to the shuffling.
I don't know where the lag comes from. Maybe it's the jellies. If that's the case, jellies could be substituted with random item destruction across the level, without the creature generation. It would be a pity, because they give strong flavour, but it's better than the current situation.
(If you had a feeling of déjà vu, it's because this message comprises large parts of older posts.)
I Feel the Need--the Need for Beer
Spoiler: show