Felid overhaul/removal

[inkydood]

If the only way for a species to be viable is to literally break the game, that species isn't really viable, now, is it? Extra lives are a crutch for bad design-- if Felids can't work without them, the species needs to be removed.

[yogaFLAME]

Remove extra lives, increase HP apt to -3, give them an evocable pounce ability.

[Bloax]

I find that the extra lives is one of the most interesting mechanics in the game. Removing that aspect would kind of make felids a bland challenge race. (For me, that is.)

[twelwe]

I think you guys kind of really forget how hard it actually is to score lives beyond the first 13 or so levels.

Like say, you have two lives at XL25. Then you die twice due to some really nasty stuff happening (admit it, it always happens once in a while). Now you're XL23, and you have to get up to XL26 to get one additional life.
XL23 -> XL26 is no joke. You could clear the two lair branches ("safe choice" example, I doubt you haven't done so at XL25) and still be something like XL24 due to your pretty huge experience cravings.

All this while still having the fragility to die just as suddenly as you did with the previous two lives. (Stone giants you suck.)

If you want to make deaths more dramatic, you could make dying trigger what, 10-15 (real, not turn-turns that are 1 move = -1 turn - so as to make it better) turns of DDoor and haste for the same period;
Allowing you to claw the everliving shit out of your tormentors, and then finally giving in to death and the stuff that happens now kicks in. (This might a powerful anti-blunder, but recall my point about levels.)

Felids are pretty fun (oh snap it's the chei guy runnn), but even if you're playing well and even if you know what you're doing you may very well die. Because you really don't have much breathing room to handle a couple of bad rolls in a row.

If anything, the extra lives don't really serve as a "get out of jail free" card to me - I even often forget I have them. (And thus jump right to the Save-Me-Arse stuff as you'd usually do with a non-felid.)
Thus they end up not being some lame thing, but a tension building feature. It gets interesting once you're hanging between one life and two. And stuff really gets interesting when you're in trouble on the last one.

though this is all probably due to me liking Chei because yummy stats

All of this ignores the fact that an EXP deficit recovery is better and more desirable than permanent death

[TwilightPhoenix]

Felids probably would be better for it if they had their stats and aptitudes raised to much better levels and extra lives removed. Or if they were reworked into a different quadruped (I still say this is a good place to put in werewolves).

[crate]

If you're playing a good felid background and you're playing well you won't die much, since you have move delay 0.8.

[eeviac]

Things I don't like about felids

1. extremely limited slots/inability to use most of the items they'll find/generally bad apts railroads them into few playstyles
2. extra lives

But I've got my fe win and won't be touching them again, so I won't complain if the devs are happy with current felids.

[inkydood]

If you're playing a good [...] background and you're playing well you won't die much

[Davion Fuxa]

It isn't like the Felid species is necessarily broken and as every aspect of the Felid that is overly strong or weak comes off as balanced in one way or another if you look at the Felid in its entirety. So what if you can get extra lives to live through a mistake you made; this is easily countered by the fact that you could simply die while not making any mistakes on account to how weak Felids are.

Felids should be left alone for as long as they stay balanced like they are now.

[Mumcon]

If you're playing a good felid background and you're playing well you won't die much, since you have move delay 0.8.

I like "won't die much" when it's because you can usually kill or avoid things before they kill you (the case for most good combos), but with felids, it seems like you won't die much only because you can constantly retreat easily and don't have to worry about food due to the carnivore mutation (the case of felids). Just like with the current extra lives feature, it seems like a mechanism to help extend the life of a weak character.

[inkydood]

His point being, of course, that the extra lives are not needed.

So a major refused and rejected concept snuck into the game for purely (or primarily) flavour reasons?

It may be interesting in the context of playing a Felid (though having one life in the context of any other race is more interesting, so it's a null point), but doesn't damage to the game as a whole offset any minor (and questionable) gains?

[KoboldLord]

So a major refused and rejected concept snuck into the game for purely (or primarily) flavour reasons?

It may be interesting in the context of playing a Felid (though having one life in the context of any other race is more interesting, so it's a null point), but doesn't damage to the game as a whole offset any minor (and questionable) gains?

Whether you think that extra lives for felids is a good or bad thing, a compulsory extra life mechanic for one specific species isn't really comparable to the mechanic that the devteam wanted to avoid.

This time, the horrible, horrible example is from Ancient Domains of Mystery. Amulets of life saving respawn you after death, and the most reasonable way to get one is to go to the Infinite Dungeon and start grinding easy monsters on the shallow levels until one turns up. To make matters worse, you are *required* to have one of these things and do a non-intuitive thing with it at a very specific time if you don't want to be locked out of the good endings. Getting one of these things is a highly obnoxious bit of forced grinding, and forced grinding is bad.

Even disregarding the whole bit where you need one as a plot coupon, a reasonably skilled player usually prepares to face challenges without burning off a ridiculously rare one-shot item, because there's going to be a whole lot of challenges to be prepared for. Consequently, in actual practice the thing life-saving actually ends up doing is hedging against really stupid moves that you could have avoided entirely if you just bothered to play carefully. It doesn't matter if you play carelessly if you've got that amulet backing your character up, and if you do lose it you only have to grind a safe area again for a number of hours to spawn another one.

In Crawl, an amulet of life-saving would quickly become perceived as a must-have, because that effect is pretty considerable compared to most other existing amulets. Giving up an amulet slot isn't much of a sacrifice when in exchange you're getting rid of any possible chance of losing your character in Pan or Hell. Felids, on the other hand, don't grind for item drops or need to get lucky with loot in order to get their life-saving, and the benefits of the gimmick are counterweighted by their generally terrible fragility.

[inkydood]

Whether you think that extra lives for felids is a good or bad thing, a compulsory extra life mechanic for one specific species isn't really comparable to the mechanic that the devteam wanted to avoid.

I think it's at odds with the general premise of "one life, no retries," though being confined to a single gimmick class at least makes it tolerable, if not particularly compelling.

Also is it just me or does ADOM take every Nethack-ism to the extreme?

[varsovie]

Possible revised mechanisms for felid revival: (brainstorm, not a functional proposal. Feel free to mix and match as you like).

• revive in same location as killed, rather than at a random location.
• revive with critical health, rather than full

It would be my pick, 50% Hp, you reapear in the same spot (or at most with a blink). That means if you died just because of a bad role, you have extra turn to escape, if you die because you put yourself in a very silly situation, you die, die, die and finally DIE.

Alternatively make the felid respawn on a level lower in the dungeon (on branch ends, stay on the same).

[King_jelly]

I say remove them. I've noticed a recent trend where all the new species have been.... difficult for the sake of it - bizarre aptitudes, being pigeon-holed into niche builds/situations, non-versitile. I want more useful and playable species. Either bump up the aptitudes or cut felids. Same goes for octopodes. Sure, eights rings is cool and all but the apititudes are terrible and again they're pigeon-holed into a caster role... :/

[crate]

Melee octopodes are perfectly winnable. I have won two of them. They were both easier than my opae that didn't melee much.

[palin]

People who don't play the races, should not request to remove them. FeBe is so easy (at least in 0.10) when you know your limitations that isn't even a challenge...

[mumra]

I say remove them. I've noticed a recent trend where all the new species have been.... difficult for the sake of it - bizarre aptitudes, being pigeon-holed into niche builds/situations, non-versitile. I want more useful and playable species. Either bump up the aptitudes or cut felids. Same goes for octopodes. Sure, eights rings is cool and all but the apititudes are terrible and again they're pigeon-holed into a caster role... :/

The thing is that all the useful and standard playstyles are already covered several times over by existing race/background combinations. The only reason to add a new species is for niche and gimmick scenarios.

[danr]

I agree with Mumra.

I'd like to see Felids buffed a little. A pounce ability that would let them leap over 1-2 squares (maybe 2 when they reach XL 12 or something). It would be like a controlled blink that worked everywhere, except it is very short range. I wouldn't necessarily include an attack in the pounce, just make the pounce a quick action.

And more HP. I don't really care about the extra lives one way or another.

Also, maybe instead of a housecat, they could be described as being like a Puma or something. That would justify more HP and also the fact that they can actually take down something like a hobgoblin or jackal at XL 1.

[Davion Fuxa]

But, but, the Felid NEEDS to be based on a cat. As a Dwarf Fortress player, it is without a doubt that I thought about playing the Felid only due the reoccurring Theme of most of the Let's Players who did videos of Dwarf Fortress owning and being interrupted by a cat (including myself at that) and the ability to play as if I was Scamps has it's own attractiveness as well. Truly it would be a Disservice to re-imagine the Felid in some other form aside from anything other then a our Feline friends...

Anyhow, I would like to see the Felid stay for reasons I've mentioned. I don't plan to play another Felid (as like others 'I've Got My Win') but to add to the point - changing Felids to something else should carry other concerns that I've yet to see mentioned. People play them now but would they play them if they were changed. I may gripe that I dislike the species but I'll admit I did have fun in my playthrough, and regardless of what people say, the playstyle for the Felid feels distinctively different because of how it's set up. What's more, the Felid - a former Witches Familiar as it is now at least sort of fits in with the Crawl Universe, but I don't think a Stalking Puma would and how would you manage to explain it's sentient behavior or imagine them casting spells?

For these reasons I think people should look back at TwilightPhoenix's suggestion but instead of replacing the Felids, just add a new race. There people could get their 'powerhouse animal' with the Felids restrictions but reworked to fit the new race. Werewolves of course is what Twilight suggested but I don't think it necessarily has to be that - it could be Raptors which technically might work if you were to think of them as near sentient as they portrayed them in Jurassic Park.

[Xion350]

How about allowing Felids to wear hats and capes? If Octopedes can wear hats I don't see why Felids can't... I'd also like to see them be able to use wands and evokable rods.

I really like the idea of Felids as a race and don't want to see them removed... just edited to help be better?

[graffen69]

As noted previously, Unarmed Combat and Stabbing working properly with Claws would be a good combat fix.

/signed

[Galefury]

If Octopedes can wear hats I don't see why Felids can't...

Octopodes are human sized. Felids are cat sized. Regular size hat + cat size cat = hilarity ensues. I'm sure there are a bunch of youtube videos about this.

[yogaFLAME]

It should be noted that the #1 argument against felid removal is the existence of the felid blade hands tile. It is the best thing.

[rebthor]

If Octopedes can wear hats I don't see why Felids can't...

Octopodes are human sized. Felids are cat sized. Regular size hat + cat size cat = hilarity ensues. I'm sure there are a bunch of youtube videos about this.

Ogres are giant sized. Trolls are giant sized. Spriggans are tiny. Yet they can all wear capes and hats in the dungeon.

[Deimos]

Selective realism, apparently.

It might be because they are balanced around not being able to wear anything at all, I don't know. Why do you think they should be able to wear hats? I don't see that as making the race any more interesting or fun, it's just a buff.

[palin]

If Octopedes can wear hats I don't see why Felids can't...

Octopodes are human sized. Felids are cat sized. Regular size hat + cat size cat = hilarity ensues. I'm sure there are a bunch of youtube videos about this.

Ogres are giant sized. Trolls are giant sized. Spriggans are tiny. Yet they can all wear capes and hats in the dungeon.

Spriggans are tiny but they can eventually use their hands to adjust the hat (maybe fixing it some way with a needle or something), this manipulation cannot be done by a cat. Still I think spriggans bigger than a common house cat.

[Stormfox]

I picture Spriggans as about the size of a big toddler, a tad less than a meter tall. After all, they can use most weapons that a human-sized being can, albeit needing two hands for most.

[TwilightPhoenix]

If there's any reason that Felids should stay, it's because mine just survived what would otherwise be a game-ending bug in the Abyss that dumped me into lava upon being warped to another region (no, I wasn't flying or levitating).

[rebthor]

I picture Spriggans as about the size of a big toddler, a tad less than a meter tall. After all, they can use most weapons that a human-sized being can, albeit needing two hands for most.

Per the KB, spriggan and felids are "little" and are treated as the same size for dodging purposes. That means spriggan and felid are deemed to be approximately the same size.

For evasion purposes: spider form and bat form are tiny (factor 6), spriggans and felids are little (factor 4), halflings and kobolds are small (factor 2), trolls ogres centaurs and nagas are large (factor -2), and dragonform is huge (factor -8).

This doesn't mean anything regarding about why spriggans can wear hats and stuff and felids can't, but hand waving felids as being smaller than spriggans is demonstrably untrue.

[karphead]

Suggestion for improvement, remove negative status (I'm thinking of the new version of Drain) when your felid dies and comes back to life. Often it's that status that caused your death so getting another life with it still applied is not cool.

[Klown]

[neil]

Suggestion for improvement, remove negative status (I'm thinking of the new version of Drain) when your felid dies and comes back to life. Often it's that status that caused your death so getting another life with it still applied is not cool.

Done, thanks.

[gammafunk]

Remove extra lives, increase HP apt to -3, give them an evocable pounce ability.

There have been a couple of suggestions of a pounce ability for felids. My jump_attack patch that's being tested in an experimental branch on CSZO (console-only at the moment) gives felids the 'jump attack' mutation at start, if anyone wants to try that out. The aim of my patch is to evolve into a good implementation of 'translocation + attack', and felids per-se aren't the focus, but it seemed like a natural thing to give as an innate to a difficult species. This ability is significantly stronger than the very-short-range ability some have mentioned: it attacks for 120% damage, has an attack range of 3 at start (2 movement) gaining a one-tile increase at both XL 6 and XL 12 (up to range 5 attack, 4 movement), allows a nerfed stabbing bonus, and makes no additional noise. The cons are that it can only attack a monster, the landing site is a random, adjacent spot to the monster, it sets exhaustion after one use (same duration as breath), it's blocked by flying/giant enemies, and can't be use when in liquid or on liquefied ground.

I've been testing running a FeTm, and it's fun to use, not extremely overpowered. Some degenerate tactics are possible with this implementation (summoning butterflies and jump-attacking them for escape or getting around deep water/lava obstacles) and there are still some fundamental issues. It may evolve into a different form of attack, turn into a spell, or undergo other nerfs, but it gives you an idea of how jump/pounce will work on a cat.

You can also try it by starting any boot-wearing species, since those will get an evocable ability (range scales similarly, but with evocations training instead of XL) through 'boots of jumping', for testing purposes.