mummy and 0.25.a0.863...

[Grisemine]

Hello, nice to see the evolution of DCSS. Just my two cents about the recent changes in dev version.
Well, mummy necro is now totally broken.
1) no more food in the game, it removes one of the best interrest of this very weak creature. Just play anything else.
2) very short animate dead/skel make it very very hard to advance without other magics.

So I really hope it will not make it in the main trunk...

[sanka]

1) Food never mattered for normal play: that mummys do not need food was a newbie trap. Food never limited normal play in a meaningful way for other species.

The only tactics where no food mattered was if you waited millions of turns for some reasons, which, in past versions, only mummy was able to do (and now the zot clock ensures nobody can do it).

You may wanted to wait millions of turns in order to:
- ensure that the monsters wander away at the other end of a staircase. It was used to be a strong ability for mummies, but it is really lame designwise, it deserved to be removed.
- waited for Xom gifts in the temple or somewhere (it was not a good tactic)
- waited for respawning monsters to level up (it was possible in ancient versions where monsters respawned, but it was not a good tactic early on, and later others could do it as well).

2.) Skeletons and zombies were powerful for everyone, it is not a mummy issue. They are still very useful. If you go Kiku you can still kill almost everything by zombies later on. Necro is not totally broken, it is still one of the strongest backgrounds, just not extremely powerful it used to be when skeletons never timed out.

Also, I think that you overvalue aptitudes and only consider mummy necromancers. While they are not bad, a mummy ice elementalist could be equally (if not more) powerful, -2 apt is not so bad, and ice is powerful.

Mummy was always a challenge species, with the main drawback that she can not drink, and two lesser drawbacks: bad aptitudes and fire vulnerability. The only visible benefit the species has is that it is immune to poison, which matters in the first few levels, and it is immune to torment, which matters in some parts of the extended game. However, neither is a big benefit, and the lack of haste (if you don ot go Gozag: go Gozag) (and other potions like heal wounds, might, etc.) is way worse. Mummy is one of the hardest species: only Naga is harder (some may argue that Nagas are not as hard, and indeed, if you survive the early game they tend to get more powerful than mummies). If you have a hard time with this very complex game, I suggest you to try a different race: like minotaur for a fighter type or draconian for mage type characters.

[Siegurt]

FWIW, the subject of this post is a little confusing, the current development version(s) are 0.26, and you reference food removal which is in 0.26 not in 0.25.

[andrew]

Given that 0.26.a0.863 is an "official" nightly, whereas 0.25.a0.863 isn't, I'd guess it's just a typo?

[Grisemine]

Given that 0.26.a0.863 is an "official" nightly, whereas 0.25.a0.863 isn't, I'd guess it's just a typo?

yes sorry it is .26

1) Food never mattered for normal play: that mummys do not need food was a newbie trap. Food never limited normal play in a meaningful way for other species.

So "there is something as "normal play" ? :/

The only tactics where no food mattered was if you waited millions of turns for some reasons, which, in past versions, only mummy was able to do (and now the zot clock ensures nobody can do it).

Mummy has no way (ie potions) to restore hp and mp other than resting...
/.../

2.) Skeletons and zombies were powerful for everyone, it is not a mummy issue. They are still very useful. If you go Kiku you can still kill almost everything by zombies later on. Necro is not totally broken, it is still one of the strongest backgrounds, just not extremely powerful it used to be when skeletons never timed out.

I usually dont ever bother to use them now, even at max power their duration is ridiculous.

Also, I think that you overvalue aptitudes and only consider mummy necromancers. While they are not bad, a mummy ice elementalist could be equally (if not more) powerful, -2 apt is not so bad, and ice is powerful.

? again, "the normal way to play" ? I dont like ice magic. Thank you. And I do not think a "mummy necromancer" is less "story normal" than a "ice wizard mummy". I only play nemelex mummy necro, and in this dev version it is broken. I come here to tell the devs before it goes "live".

Mummy was always a challenge species, with the main drawback that she can not drink, and two lesser drawbacks: bad aptitudes and fire vulnerability.

Yes, hard and I like it that way. But not impossible.

The only visible benefit the species has is that it is immune to poison, which matters in the first few levels, and it is immune to torment, which matters in some parts of the extended game. However, neither is a big benefit, and the lack of haste (if you don ot go Gozag: go Gozag) (and other potions like heal wounds, might, etc.) is way worse. Mummy is one of the hardest species: only Naga is harder (some may argue that Nagas are not as hard, and indeed, if you survive the early game they tend to get more powerful than mummies). If you have a hard time with this very complex game, I suggest you to try a different race: like minotaur for a fighter type or draconian for mage type characters.

The "only" benefit is food, and when time does not matter, you can imagine strategies to go for very difficult opponents (ie fire or confusing) with patience and time. And you had all the time. But it seems "it is not as intended". So is this game for me.
It is more and more a "rush game". Please tell the devs to reconsider other playing styles. Thank you for your attention.

[sanka]

1) What I am trying to say is that "no food" practically was never considered as a benefit of mummies. It was a trap for new players: from the description and the game they assumed that mummies has this "benefit", and they need to use it with a mummy somehow. In reality you could not use different opportunities or strategies against difficult monsters with a mummy because of the lack of food.

Potion healing, for example, never mattered food wise: everybody rests by waiting (well, except deep dwarf), food did not matter there for others. You only used potions in emergencies, not to save food.

Players demanded the removal of food since years and years, because they realised this does not matter much.

2.) What I referred as "normal play" is that there were one sole exception: mummies could wait millions and millions of turns in a way other races could not. (I did not talk about waiting to heal up (around 100 turns) etc, every race could do those all the time all game, I am talking about waiting millions of turns, pressing 5 about 100000 times.) I am not sure if you have ever used this tactic and what did you hope to accomplish with it. I do not see for example how it is particularly relevant against difficult monsters. This tactic was the one which I have reffered as "not normal": which new player tries to wait so long and why? I am honestly curious. (There were serious benefits in some situations, but they required a detailed understanding of the game.) Waiting for so long was not a very good gameplay in my humble opinion.

3) The removal of food did not make crawl into more of a rush game, in fact, it removed one incentive to rush forward (which was never very strong anyway) for non mummies. Perhaps you talk about the new Zot clock? You should talk about it explicitely. I rarely rush and I have never seen the zot clock yet in my games, it is very lenient. So I am wondering what are you doing if the zot clock prevents you doing it (so you feel you need to "rush").

Mummies are still not impossible, especially since the removal of food did not affect them at all. If they had special tactics (they did not) they merely become available to others (but such tactics did not really exsist).

4) I did not want to judge your character selection, sorry. Mummy necromancer of nemelex is a very fun combo for me as well! I just read "mummies are ruined" and then you talk about necromancy, which are not tied in any way.

In my particular opinion the combo is not ruined, it is still fun, and I think it is more fun that it used to be. The tactic that is ruined was the following: after every battle, revivie every single skeleton and enter every new battle with a large army. Well, yes, I have won this way, and it is perhaps fun once - especially if you know no other ways to win. But in the balancing process developers try to remove very, very strong options, even if it ruins your playstyle: it happened in the past many, many times, with many, many favorite tactics of others. (I still remember Fulsome Distillation, which I liked to play with, but yeah - it was bad for the game as a whole.) Very strong options kind of make the game worse for many players, because there is less variation: you are always very tempted to use them. In fact, skeletons (and zombies) were so strong that many times when I played a mummy necromancer I have deliberatly tried to win without them: it was more fun. Animate skeleton was the sole level 1 spell that was very useful even in Zot. (Although I have not tried the new version but I guess it still is.)

The new necromancer is different. You can use animate skeleton in the middle of a battle (because you do not need to stand on the corpse). You can use vampiric draining immediately (you do not need to be hurt). You start with agony (very strong spell). All these gives new opportunities, and I feel that the new necromancer is more fun: the tactics you employ matter more. If you really want to kill everything with skeletons and zombies, you could still play an older version, or you could go Kiku. But now you need to use more spells and this is more fun (for me).

[Deso]

All this said, the relevance between having ghoul, mummy and vampire needs to be addressed.
I'd propose:
* Remove ghouls entirely - vampires already fill their niche when bloodless
* Buff mummy's non-weapon aptitudes by 1-2. But reduce their EXP to -2.
* Improve vampires - allow transmutation spells while in human form - have special abilities to change into bat and Bloodless (which is actually a Beserk state) vampire.

[andrew]

3) The removal of food did not make crawl into more of a rush game, in fact, it removed one incentive to rush forward (which was never very strong anyway) for non mummies. Perhaps you talk about the new Zot clock? You should talk about it explicitely. I rarely rush and I have never seen the zot clock yet in my games, it is very lenient. So I am wondering what are you doing if the zot clock prevents you doing it (so you feel you need to "rush").

Just to illustrate, my last win (MfMo^Oka) had only one floor on which it spent more than 6000 turns; and I was making no attempt to rush. In fact, on no other floor did I spend more than 4000 turns.

About Ghoul removal --- I think the intended niche there is "undead that's good at melee". Are Vampires really that good at it?

[Deso]

Vampires X Ghouls

Fangs 3 > Claws 1
Vampiric Byte > "Corpse" Eating
Slightly Worse combat aptitudes < Slightly better combat aptitudes
Decent Stats > Worst Stats in game

A Vampire could have it's bloodless state slightly more suited to combat to even out this - I mean vampire warrior is even an enemy archetyoe.

[sanka]

I think in trunk the corpse eating thing is gone, and instead ghouls heal on kills.

[sanka]

Also, vampires can use transmutations when they are in Alive status.

[andrew]

On the other hand, ghouls have +10% maxHP while bloodless vampires have -20%. (Alive vampires aren't really so undead.) That's a big difference.

(Also, I've never won a vampire, while I've won multiple ghouls. But my experience may not be typical.)

[sanka]

In my experience ghouls are generally stronger than vampires, because more hp matters more than aptitudes, and their heal on kills is better than vampire's vampiric bite.

The strong ability of a vampire is bat form: but in recent versions you can use it much, much less since it has an actual cost. But they only get it at level 3 and when bloodless (which means they have -20% hp). It is still very strong though, so maybe better players judge it to be enough to make vampires stronger, at least after level3?

[Deso]

Well the bloodless form could be better in combat to round up this better.
Still the corpse eating I was referring is the trunk's heal on kill, hence the ("").

[Siegurt]

Yeah, I find that ghouls are significantly more robust, and vampires are noticably more flexible, particularly in terms of spellcasting, and of course they're very stealthy, they're more different some other pairs of races. If I was going to pick a race that's too similar to another race and remove it as redundant, ghouls/vampires wouldn't come close to my first choice.

[Grisemine]

Ok, lets say it that way?
Why not making Raise undead MORE powerful ? ie your minions does NOT expire ? And pass stairs ? Make us CHAMPIONS ? Winners ?
I've played too much this game and died, died, died.
This game is not for me anymore. Used to be "casual play", now you have to micromanage everythng. And all the "fun" (ie bizarre cards for Nemelex ? Why are they gone ?) (what about "Open like a pillow", where is it gone ?)
Fuck.
I'm out. If only I find anything fun still on dev. (zangband dead, ToMe has dived into boring steangeness, and so on).
Dont make me replay Castle of the winds :/