merfolk avoiding shallow water


Although the central place for design discussion is ##crawl-dev on freenode, some may find it helpful to discuss requests and suggestions here first.

should merfolk avoid (shallow) water during autotravel?

yes, they should avoid water
3
25%
no, they should not avoid water
2
17%
actually, they should prefer travelling through water
7
58%
 
Total votes : 12

Zot Zealot

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Post Monday, 6th April 2020, 15:29

merfolk avoiding shallow water

I'm looking through the code, and noticed this snippet:
  Code:
        // Higher cost for shallow water if species doesn't like water or if
        // they are merfolk, since those will prefer to avoid melding their
        // boots during travel.

It seems to me that merfolk should not be avoiding water, since water gives them bonus EV, speed, and stealth.
anyone disagree?

changing the behaviour is a matter of a simple deletion of a half-line of code.

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duvessa

Cocytus Succeeder

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Post Monday, 6th April 2020, 16:01

Re: merfolk avoiding shallow water

Too specific case for a rc file option?
screw it I hate this character I'm gonna go melee Gastronok

Zot Zealot

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Post Monday, 6th April 2020, 16:12

Re: merfolk avoiding shallow water

I'd be happy for someone else to put it in a rc file option, but I don't think I could do that. I'm having trouble even making a pull request.
(the relevant file is travel.cc btw)

Swamp Slogger

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Post Wednesday, 8th April 2020, 12:28

Re: merfolk avoiding shallow water

I'm thinking "Your boots of Awesomeness {rEverything+++ Clarity etc.} meld" might come as a nasty surprise...
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Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Wednesday, 8th April 2020, 14:14

Re: merfolk avoiding shallow water

rigrig wrote:I'm thinking "Your boots of Awesomeness {rEverything+++ Clarity etc.} meld" might come as a nasty surprise...

Personally, I'd remove this flavour and just give them a sinuous body that makes them swim fast in the water. I just don't think it's something fun to keep track of.
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vt

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Post Wednesday, 8th April 2020, 15:01

Re: merfolk avoiding shallow water

I'm thinking "Your boots of Awesomeness {rEverything+++ Clarity etc.} meld" might come as a nasty surprise...


You do autoexplore into water as a merfolk right now, by default. This line seems to disincentivize it somehow, but it does not disallow it.

If you want not to autoexplore into shallow water there is already an rcfile option for that:

  Code:
travel_avoid_terrain = shallow water, deep water


edit: if OP's change is done it might also make sense to change that function not to disincentivize going over shafts, since there's not really a cost to just walking over one.
Last edited by vt on Wednesday, 8th April 2020, 17:05, edited 1 time in total.

Zot Zealot

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Post Wednesday, 8th April 2020, 16:55

Re: merfolk avoiding shallow water

I hadn't expected there to be so much support tor making merfolk prefer travailing for water. I've tried to code that up, but the effects of such a change where very hard to see through, and I don't think I can implement it without bugs. (An integer-valued thing had to become a float, or else its out-put had to be multiplied by some constant, but it is called by another function which compares it with constants, etc...)

As such, I have submitted a pull request to at least have merfolk not avoid water.
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Zot Zealot

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Post Wednesday, 8th April 2020, 22:32

Re: merfolk avoiding shallow water

Remove merfolk boots slot!

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andrew

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Thursday, 9th April 2020, 05:39

Re: merfolk avoiding shallow water

remove merfolk water bonuses
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Snake Sneak

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Post Saturday, 11th April 2020, 04:03

Re: merfolk avoiding shallow water

duvessa wrote:remove merfolk water bonuses


Merfolk without water bonuses become bad tengu with no wings, if you went this route it would be equivalent to "remove merfolk" because that's the obvious next step after removing their defining feature.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Saturday, 11th April 2020, 05:50

Re: merfolk avoiding shallow water

There are levels in Crawl right now that have no water on them. Are merfolk bad tengu with no wings on those levels?

Luring monsters to water is not good gameplay, making water branches trivial is not good either. If merfolk's only defining feature is that they get bonuses for camping in one terrain type, then yeah, merfolk should be removed. I always assumed that their aptitudes were supposed to be a defining feature, not just their water bonuses. At least one of their water bonuses (the melee damage bonus) has been removed already!

Zot Zealot

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Post Saturday, 11th April 2020, 13:46

Re: merfolk avoiding shallow water

I actually thing that making certain branches easier is good game design.
Supposing the merfolk bonus is enough to make Swamp easier than Orc, and a merman does Swamp before Orc, that's changed the way the game was played in an interesting manner.

Does anyone know when this pull request might be accepted or rejected?
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Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Sunday, 12th April 2020, 15:02

Re: merfolk avoiding shallow water

Personally I would remove small puddles and add a 4% chance that any level is completely flooded with shallow water. I don't know what it would do to stealth, however, or how it would play out for something like Elec.

Such a change would also give more meaning to different sizes.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Tuesday, 14th April 2020, 03:20

Re: merfolk avoiding shallow water

Electrocution hasn't interacted with water since like 7 years ago, so no need to worry about that.

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Zot Zealot

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Post Wednesday, 22nd April 2020, 12:18

Re: merfolk avoiding shallow water

The change which makes merfolk not avoid water has now been accepted into the crawl trunk :)

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