Abjuration changes in .10

[minstrel]

It appears that abjuration is now a single target spell. Anyone know anything more on this? Like will enemy summon spam be reduced also? This seems like it would lead to some annoying (read as tedious-difficult, not fun-difficult) situations in the late game and push everyone to carry smite targeted nuke spells around.

Just tried to run a transmuter who had lousy RNG luck with items through the first few levels of a zig as a last ditch effort to bulk up, and a single mummy priest flooded the level with junk, much faster than I could pick anything off or even hack through it. Had to teleport and make a dash for the exit.

Edit: just noticed the new Mass Abjuration spell in the Grand Grimoire. A level 7 summoning spell seems like too high a requirement for something that most would consider a necessity in the late game.

[KoboldLord]

There are plans to scale back monster summoning, yes. I don't think it's completely hashed out, and a few different things might need to be tried. You don't really need smite-targeting, though. Bolt-targeting works just as well. Most attack rods have something that works, and the seven thousand yaktaurs you fight over the course of a normal game will probably drop a few stacks of bolts of penetration.

You can also almost always run away. The summon spam still times out, as before.

[Kate]

Monster summon spam has already been scaled down somewhat. Almost all monster summoning spells create fewer monsters at a time, and some have been more significantly changed - shadow creatures in the hands of low-HD monsters like boggarts will only create one summon (although it can still be a band, like player shadow creatures), and greater demon also only ever creates a single demon now, for example. There's definitely room for further tweaking, though, so I'm keeping an eye on how it plays out.

[bobross419]

How long ago were these changes made?

I'm running 0.10-a0-498-g72d0b57 and came across a Giant Orange Brain and in one turn he summoned enough spam to fill almost the whole screen - At least 3 squares deep around him. Looked like Shadow Creatures, but there were a few "pack" units like green slimies, yaktaurs, and orcs so that might have played into high numbers.

Just giving feedback on things I've seen, if the changes were made after my last build then no worries

[minstrel]

My unscientific single experience and gut feel so far make me hope the scaling back on summons goes further. Casters and lighter-armor hybrids won't have any more problems than before (less problems if anything) - they'll just nuke/bolt/mass abjure. But I wonder if heavy armor types will be able to keep up with even reduced summon spam if you get a handful of 3s in sight, for example, filling up the screen with 5s between you and the &. They can escape, of course, but it feels like it might just add tedium. Going to run a heavy armor guy and see I think.

[mikee]

Mass abjuration is currently near-useless. Way too high-level for its effects, considering that monster summoning was scaled down. It could be reduced in level, but I'd rather just remove it since regular abjuration is plenty.

You (or someone) should try it in a zig or somewhere else where there is likely to be a screen full of summons. Maybe it would be a good spell there. I would do it myself, but I'm taking a break from playing.

[mikee]

Edit: just noticed the new Mass Abjuration spell in the Grand Grimoire. A level 7 summoning spell seems like too high a requirement for something that most would consider a necessity in the late game.

Abjuration was never a necessity, regardless of what people "consider." It's simply a (good) spell that is overly popular on this forum. It's not like we are talking about 0.7 haste.

[minstrel]

Abjuration was never a necessity, regardless of what people "consider." It's simply a (good) spell that is overly popular on this forum. It's not like we are talking about 0.7 haste.

I think we're drilling down into semantics to some degree, but I'd consider it an enabler of a broader range of play styles than pure magic and magic-heavy hybrids. You can do without it otherwise, but it promotes a play style that's so far into the overly-cautious range that I would classify it as unfun to most players.

That said, as I mentioned I have only one experience with the new monster summoning, and though it was negative so far, it may be the exception. We'll see how some melee types pan out now.

[mikee]

I think we're drilling down into semantics to some degree

I am doing no such thing. You made an argument as follows:
1) Spells that are a necessity for winning should not be very high level.
2) Mass abjuration is a necessity for winning.
3) Mass abjuration should not be level 7.

I do not think (2) is true. A vast majority of winners have not even had abjuration memorized! To quote another thread, how do these geniuses do it? =P

but I'd consider it an enabler of a broader range of play styles than pure magic and magic-heavy hybrids.

Honestly, I don't know what this means. Maybe you could provide me with examples.

You can do without it otherwise, but it promotes a play style that's so far into the overly-cautious range that I would classify it as unfun to most players.

It's simply a matter of running away and coming back - or running away and not coming back.

[Jeremiah]

The background with the most winners in the 0.8 tournament was berserker, leading to berserk being nerfed in 0.9

The background with the most winners in the 0.9 tournament was... berserker (though by a much smaller margin). Clearly Abjuration is not necessary to win the game in either version.

However, with all the nerfing of spells that is currently going on, I wonder if some time soon, berserkers will be overwhelmingly dominant again, leading to another nerfing of berserk, followed by another round of nerfing of everything else, with the net result being that the game gets harder and more frustrating for new and intermediate players, without making a significant difference to the awesome players who can win with their eyes closed [/whine]

I've always wondered if the best way to balance Abjuration, rather than making it single-target, would be to make its success very heavily dependent on the relative power of the Abjuration spell vs the summoning spell, so just getting enough summoning to cast it might work against Eustachio, but to abjure the summons of an ancient lich you would have to have invested a lot of XP into summoning.

[dpeg]

Jeremiah: That's a very player-centric point of view. You completely miss all the buffs that take place at the same time. Also I don't have the feeling that berserk rage was nerfed because **Be got most wins in a tournement. We don't look at the list of wins and decide that the top styles are to be nerfed. There is some relationship, of course (overpowered features tend to lead to mass play and then higher win rates) but I think the affair is a lot more subtle than you give it credit for.

[dpeg]

Again, this only addresses the nerfs. What about increasing loot with all the vaults and portal vaults that have been made in DCSS? The recent starting +3 HP? It is not our goal to nerf the game into oblivion but when we perceive something as too strong, we react. (I know that minmay doesn't have any problem with that, so he's not the audience of this rant )
I believe that DCSS Trog is stronger than pre-DCSS Trog. Berserk rage has been nerfed and "rSlow has been removed. How does that affect Berserker win chances? I don't know but I am confident that Berserkers are as viable as ever. This is just one example how nerfs and buffs go together.

[Baldurino]

Yeah where minmay is coming from makes sense if you think about a spectrum of game difficulty and average difficulty. The power of the best combos determine how easy the game is to complete. We are seeing a gradual nerfing of the best combos.

I think if we make a list of the major buffs and nerfs we can determine for sure if the game has increased or decreased in difficulty. This is my list from 0.7

Nerfed:
Storm spells, Tornado
refridgeration, throw icicle, poison cloud,
haste
beserk
no Teleport Self, Berserker Rage spell, Resist Poison
no enchant robes to +9
more places where ctrl teleport isn't possible
Trog specialises in antimagic weapon gifts , gives fewer artefacts
Fighting gives less HP boost.
slime has burning walls

Buffs:
Inner Flame, Shroud of Golubria
New spell: Summon Dragon
+3hp
more loot
Armor buff
No chain paralysis
Removed instant stat death
No victory dancing

If someone can think of more to add to the list that would be cool.

the nerfs the game harder. do the buffs make up for it? IMO no

[dpeg]

Sorry to spray water, but this "comparison" does not really make much sense. This is in details (e.g. Fighting does indeed give less HP, but levels give more HP instead; the haste nerf also affects monsters, that's a buff) but also from a global point of view: We don't think about balance in any way like this. It is important that the game can be won -- easily/reliably for the experienced, at some point for the unspoiled (this is with good combos).
Nerfing overly strong features is, and always was, part of the package. Overly strong can be roughly defined as: so strong as to dominate a way to win the game, i.e. broken. Crawl is ever-balancing, that's one of the features you get out of "open source, free": development never stops. Note that this is also the forum which sees complaints about how casters are so much stronger than melee fighters. Nerfing certain spells does not come from the woodworks, there is a very good reason for it.

By the way, I believe that the +3 Health buff is a lot more valuable than you give it credit for. The slime walls fade into non-existence by comparison.

[galehar]

Regarding HP, you make it seem much worse than it really is. Fighting gives less HP but you also have much more base HP in the endgame. Not just +3 but about +35. This is a nerf to low base HP / high fighting combos (SpBe), and a buff to almost everyone else. For most races, you get the same HP as before without having to train fighting to 10, and you get more if you do. This is a huge buff.
Since your point of comparison is 0.7, you can't count tornado as a nerf, it wasn't there in 0.7. And it has received so many changes, it doesn't make sense to have it in such a list.
Nerf: higher skill cost for magic school skills in the early game.
Buff: Smooth skills (partial skill levels have an effect). It has just been merged.

[ebarrett]

I still didn't get to test the new abjuration spells; but I did meet my boggart packs and 1-summoning demon lords, and my opinion is that the change is akin to the haste nerf in that the other changes that come with it (orbs of fire and other nasty fast monsters having their speed reduced after the haste nerf, monster summoning being scaled down for abjuration changes) make the game easier for characters who don't have the spell (you now have a good chance of just overwhelming the summons) and not substantially different for those who have. Tomb without silence and ziggurats are another story, of course, but these are supposed to be brutal, right? Requiring a L7 spell there for crowd control if you go the abjuration route seems adequate.

Also interesting to see that this was also a stealth Mnoleg buff, since his XXX doesn't seem to have been scaled down. Of course, he still needs another few dozen versions of direct and indirect buffs to become actually dangerous, poor Mnoleg. Haste nerf-related Gloorx' buff was a lot nastier!


(edited for grammerrrr)

[minstrel]

After playing the same PC through Pan that was in the Zig earlier, the summon spam from the mummy was about the worst I've run into. It might be confirmation bias (probably is) but it also seems like monsters summon less often now. I felt like earlier characters had pan lords popping out demons just about every turn and this time I seldom see many.

All in all, IMO it's been a well balanced change so far and I like that abjuration is no longer high on the priority list of spells to have (for me anyway it was before, it seems obvious some others would disagree).

[dtsund]

Overly strong can be roughly defined as: so strong as to dominate a way to win the game

Does this mean physical attacks are overpowered?