Felid overhaul/removal

[Blade]

(for reference, here is an old thread covering some of the issues I mention here. I would have put this post in there, but 9 months seems like a bit too long for thread resurrection)
(another note: this may fit better on the devwiki; I thought it might be a good idea to post it here first and get feedback on it. If I should move it over there, let me know and I will be happy to do so [I have no idea where it would fit, though, so I'd need help on that])

This topic has been brought up on ##crawl several times, and it seems like it’s about time to address it elsewhere. Essentially, felids as they currently exist have massive problems in concept and execution, and should either be overhauled or removed from the game completely.

Problems with felids:

First, they have very few choices. Because of an inability to use most items in the dungeon, every FeBe plays almost identically, every FeSu plays almost identically, etc. Bots can get much further with felids than they can with anything else, which in itself is indicative of a problem.

In addition, their optimal playstyle is tedious. Because they are fast, have low HP, low AC, and high EV, they tend to kite monsters, run away frequently, block themselves with summons, etc.

Their apts are silly and extremely confusing for new players. They have +4 hexes, +3 stabbing, and +3 stealth, despite those skills (except arguably stealth) having almost no use for them. Meanwhile, their most useful aptitudes (fighting, spellcasting, UC, offensive magic, etc.) are mediocre at best. This isn’t a problem for experienced players, but can easily lead newbies into poor strategies, such as training stealth and stabbing to high levels on febe.
Meanwhile, they have a rather uncomfortable niche. There are several other dodgy races with poor defenses and limited armour (e.g. spriggan, octopode, troll) that have similar apts and do most things better. Their most common classes (be, tm, su) can be done very similarly by troll (be/tm), octopode (tm), and mummy (su).

Most importantly, the policy for their design seems to be “balance brokenly weak aspects with brokenly strong ones.” They make up for abysmal hp, mediocre apts, and terrible defenses with fast movement, near-gourmand, and an extra lives mechanic that I will talk about in greater detail later. These advantages (primarily fast movement and extra lives) make them relatively easy for experienced players, but are underutilized by the new players who want something simple (which felid professes to be). This results in an interesting situation where they are too easy/tedious for many experienced players to enjoy them, and too confusing/difficult for newbies.

Finally, they are unpopular. This alone is not enough reason to warrant removal, but it is worth consideration. Felids were the third-least-won race in the March 2012 tournament, behind ghouls and humans. Of the 7 felids won during the tourney, 5 of them were FeSk, a Nemelex’s choice combo. The felid high score during the tournament escaped with 4 runes in almost 150k turns. People rarely play them and often complain about them.

Extra lives:

Extra lives are distinct from the other problems and stand out as the worst by far. Crawl has no amulet of lifesaving. Death is permanent and should be avoided at all costs. This is a good thing, and one of the key features of roguelikes. It promotes cautious play and adds a greater weight to actions. Felids, though, have none of this before their last life. They have an automatic get-out-of-jail free card that, while it lowers their xl, allows them to bounce back from mistakes that would kill any other race. People use this, too; almost every felid win has a few deaths. It is bizarre that, while an AoLS or similar has been firmly rejected, felids get several. Death should be permanent, and felids blatantly break that rule. That they evidently need to break that rule to be playable or unique is a problem in its own right.

Possible fixes:

If removal is considered a bad idea, there are several routes that could be taken to improve felids. They could be taken two directions: First, they could be made significantly easier for new players and function as something of a training race. Alternatively, they could be made significantly harder and function as a challenge race for experts. Either way, extra lives should be removed (or significantly changed).

The simplest option to make felids more newbie-friendly is more hp. Right now, they have the worst hp in the game. Raising that to DE levels or so would make them much less fragile. They could also have stabbing special-cased to work with their claws, so that their already-good apts in those areas could be put to use. Alternatively, their UC or offensive magic aptitudes could be raised. A more unlikely option would be to allow them use of wands, making them slightly less restricted in escape options.

If the goal is to make them harder, a simple removal of the extra lives mechanic could be enough. Alternatively, they could lose swiftness or receive some other nerfs. I doubt that this is a good option (felids probably shouldn’t be a challenge race), but it’s there.

Alternatively, just remove them. There are enough problems that this seems like the best option to me, but others have expressed a desire to keep them in the game. Regardless of what happens, though, something should be changed.
(I have been informed that removing a race requires a nontrivial amount of work. It seems like it would be worth the effort, but I may be wrong)

tl;dr: Felids are shoehorned into a few roles, are bad for newbies but strong for experts, are generally tedious, and tend to be among the least popular races. They desperately need overhaul or removal.

[BlackSheep]

Alternatively, just remove them.

This would be my vote. They're a little too "out there" for me.

[IronJelly]

I feel similarly, and sometimes will mention that they don't feel like they belong. There are no cat enemies as of yet, and, as you mention, the extra lives thing sort of breaks a roguelike staple.

giving them a better clawed stab sounds like we're turning them into crippled Spriggans.

If they were to change, I would do the following:

1) no extra lives, that's sort of a given
2) they are not unable to use things. Instead, the wand or weapon is in their mouth, which:
a) means they can't eat without unwielding.
b) MUST wield a wand to evoke it
c) can never get weapon delay faster than "average" even with a weapon of speed.
d) can't use larger weapons (similar to Spriggans)
e) have trouble stabbing (furthering them from Spriggans)
3) I would raise their evo aptitude significantly (even up to +4 or +5). If they can't be made too much more useful in normal skill roles, making them much better at using divine abilities certainly opens them up to a wider range of playstyles besides Trog.
4) Keep the low HP/swiftness and lack of armour (it's a cat, after all)
5) Since cats already are following the "silly" route in having 9 lives, maybe we could replace it with "cleanliness is next to godliness" and let them cure poison on themselves via cleaning themselves whenever they rest for a full rest duration.
6) On that note, maybe eating plants could cure sickness for them. Fedhas would of course despise this.


Of course, I don't quite understand the influx of "silly" races lately. Between Felids and Octopodes, I'm unsure where the game is going, and I think I would vote for removal of Felids for the reasons listed above (mostly that no other cats exist in the game anywhere, nor witches that you could be a familiar for). Personally, I would prefer to think of my Octopde as a Cthulu/Zoidberg style of being, with the tentacles on the face, rather than as extra arms.

[XuaXua]

I like the Felid, not for any attachment reasons, but only because it provides a different concept from the other available racial options.

I do see it is pigeonholed and have experienced this firsthand.

Rather than throw the baby out with the bathwater, what can be done to rework them?

I agree that the skill leveling modifiers appear unbalanced; if Felids reduced the Steath modifier and had an innate Stealth+, that might aid them.

Possibly the addition of some sort of leaping mechanic, considering cats leap almost unbelievably?

One way to consider repairing resurrection would be to remove a prior level's worth of skill points, proportionally distributed across all skills.

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

[dtsund]

2) they are not unable to use things. Instead, the wand or weapon is in their mouth, which:
a) means they can't eat without unwielding.
b) MUST wield a wand to evoke it

Sweet Jegus, the tedium.

[IronJelly]

I like the Felid, not for any attachment reasons, but only because it provides a different concept from the other available racial options.

I do see it is pigeonholed and have experienced this firsthand.

Rather than throw the baby out with the bathwater, what can be done to rework them?

I agree that the skill leveling modifiers appear unbalanced; if Felids reduced the Steath modifier and had an innate Stealth+, that might aid them.

Possibly the addition of some sort of leaping mechanic, considering cats leap almost unbelievably?

One way to consider repairing resurrection would be to remove a prior level's worth of skill points, proportionally distributed across all skills.

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

Wouldn't that make them into crippled Spriggans?

2) they are not unable to use things. Instead, the wand or weapon is in their mouth, which:
a) means they can't eat without unwielding.
b) MUST wield a wand to evoke it

Sweet Jegus, the tedium.

It's possible that IronJelly guy was just trolling because he actually thinks they should be removed.

[crate]

Ok blade you win i will play more felids so i can argue from experience that i think they're probably worth keeping. i hope you enjoy killing my 100% felid winrate.

[TwilightPhoenix]

Felids should stay. Their problem, as I see it, is they got over-nerfed after their beta testing. Felids when they first appeared in trunk were strong. Very, very strong. Because of this, they got beaten to an inch of their life with the nerf bat, kind of like how heavy armor did back in the day. I like Felids as a concept and I liked them back in Trunk, but I'm don't play them much now because they hang a little too much on extra lives since stepping around the corner and getting one-shotted by a Centaur or what not happens far more frequently than it does with anyone else.

Felids having less options than other species is part of the point to them. They're cats, they can't pick up and swing a bow or shoot an arrow. They can't carry a shield or wear plate mail. And that's fine, not every species needs every option ever.

I think Felids should probably be tweaked a little bit stronger, but not necessary in just HP and aptitudes. A pounce-type ability would work quite well for them as well as many able to slip through small spaces, such as through metallic bars. Cats are good climbers, so maybe they can have limited cling around trees and other types of terrain. Their claw-stabbing could also be improved, though I'd say not with straight damage, but other effects such as clawing out an opponent's eyes.


Another idea would be to retool them into another quadrupedal species. Something bigger and tougher. This could be a good spot to work in werewolves. Have Crawl's lycanthropes be quadrupedal and always in wereform and while unable to use equipment, might be able to do things other things such as howling to cause fear or inflicting sickness with bites. They could also be made less into a "gimped Spriggan" and into something else HP and aptitudes-wise.

[xopods]

I also think Felids should stay, but be changed a little.

First, extra lives should stay in some form or another. It's nonsense to claim that Crawl doesn't have life-saving; several gods do it. They just don't teleport you and heal you to full in the process. But nor do they drain a level.

Maybe it shouldn't be a get-out-of-blunder-free card, though. Maybe it should be something like having Death's Door as an evokable mutation, at the cost of self-draining a level's worth of XP, or a permanent reduction of 1 point to a random stat, or something like that.

I agree that they should get a better damage multiplier to their stabbing in order to make the stabbing skill useful.

Hexes in general need to be made more varied and interesting, but I think that's being done anyway, so their Hexes aptitude should be more interesting.

Anyway, I've been playing Felid Fire Elementalists for a while now and find them pretty fun, though not getting any equipment is a bit boring.

[Grimm]

A wider question seems to be: does Crawl want or need "trick" species? And wider: does it want/need trick anything, such as Labyrinth?

I opine "yes".

[pratamawirya]

Felids are confusing so let's remove them.

Sorry but I don't buy this kind of minimalism.

[TehDruid]

Possibly the addition of some sort of leaping mechanic, considering cats leap almost unbelievably?

I'd be all for removing the extra lives and giving them this extra tool for survival. I guess it would work on a breath timer so it's not imbalanced.

Another idea would be to retool them into another quadrupedal species. Something bigger and tougher. This could be a good spot to work in werewolves. Have Crawl's lycanthropes be quadrupedal and always in wereform and while unable to use equipment, might be able to do things other things such as howling to cause fear or inflicting sickness with bites. They could also be made less into a "gimped Spriggan" and into something else HP and aptitudes-wise.

I'd be ok with a saber tooth too. Would still be a cat. And it should have 0 HP apt but also humanlike EV. Best DEX, then STR, then INT, good EV apt (as is the case now), no armour apt, keep all mutations as of now.

Or, the Felid, since it could easily be considered a familiar kind of creature, it should be used to having a master, thus a great INV score (at least +3) would be pretty nice. Having strong god abilities would help surviving, I think. Especially with a god like Elyvilon. And it would also fill the gap of not having an insanely good worshiping species. Not that it's needed, I guess, but w/e.

In all cases I'd like the extra lives to go. Every time I die around Lair I find it incredibly demoralizing to go back to playing because of the lost level which sets you even further back. As if Felids don't have trouble leveling already.

[XuaXua]

Felids should stay. Their problem, as I see it, is they got over-nerfed after their beta testing.

Q4T

IIRC, they used to be able to carry daggers in their mouths or something; as it stands, they can wield decks (in their mouths) and use them effectively, but I really don't understand how those can work and yet wands can't. It's odd to me.

[Blade]

A wider question seems to be: does Crawl want or need "trick" species? And wider: does it want/need trick anything, such as Labyrinth?

I opine "yes".

"Trick" species as a whole have absolutely nothing to do with this, and labyrinths certainly do not. I have no problem with octopodes, for example, since their gimmick creates a new, fun sort of gameplay. Bringing labyrinths into this discussion is even more ridiculous. This thread is about very specific problems with felids and what can be done to fix them (or, alternatively, about removing them).

First, extra lives should stay in some form or another. It's nonsense to claim that Crawl doesn't have life-saving; several gods do it. They just don't teleport you and heal you to full in the process. But nor do they drain a level.

There are distinct, clear, and vital differences between good god lifesaving and felid extra lives. The most obvious is that divine protection is not in any way guaranteed (and the most reliable, Ely's, is an active invocation, making it most similar to DDoor). Felid extra lives are passive, 100% guaranteed, and give you full heal/tele. This is a bad thing, and I would be surprised if it could ever be implemented well.

Felids are confusing so let's remove them.

Sorry but I don't buy this kind of minimalism.

ugh...look. I did not say or imply anything like that. I stated specific problems and the need for a change or removal. Don't create straw men; it helps no one.

Felids should stay. Their problem, as I see it, is they got over-nerfed after their beta testing.

This is an interesting point, and one that I unfortunately have little experience with, since felids have remained unchanged (afaik) since I started playing Crawl with 0.9.

I quite like the ideas regarding pouncing, but it might be simpler just to give them a lower stabbing apt and stop pretending that's part of their builds. I also like your lycanthrope idea, but that's just my preference for wolves talking, so I won't comment too much on it.

It's probably possible to salvage felids. Regardless, though, their current form is bad.

[XuaXua]

So, let's see what we have.

Felid (or at its most generic, "Animal") is a 4-legged beast.
Therefore, it should move fast and possibly leap.
It can rend with claws, but can't rightly manipulate as it uses all paws for walking.
If it holds something, it's in the mouth, so it loses the bite, but should still be able to paw.

I would allow it to hold items in the mouth, but greatly reduce accuracy. Since weapons cannot be trained, using Fighting as default for these actions (if any) makes sense.

Offense is unarmed combat. Unarmed Combat is natural, so at worst +0, same with FIghting.
No throwing. No ranged weaponry. No standard weapon skills.

Since it's on all 4 feet, this might make it more agile and therefore get a Dex bonus and/or a Stealth bonus, but not necessarily a Stealth Skill Bonus.
"Animal" is an animal and as with canine animals, this sort should have an innate Sense Invisible, but not See Invisible.
Some form or bonus to Trap detection due to proximity and ability to observe may make sense.
Dodging is at worst +0.

The original concept was as a familiar, so magic skills are sensible; a +1/+2 to all magic skills.
To counter this, a -1/-2 to spellcasting to compensate as a penalty for not having proper implements to cast spells (hands or speech).

Someone is probably going to counter with "Oh, that's an Ogre" or something; I honestly don't care. If it's a problem, suggest a way to fix it.

Abilities:
LEAPING (mechanic)
- a controlled blink with a 3-4 square distance (distance possibly dependent on Dex Attribute Value), but the path must be empty or contain only floor alterations (Water/lava) and/or gas (including flames/gas).
- If passing through gas/flames/frost, confusion/poison/damage checks ARE done to player as it passes, but should not stop player from arriving on target, unless killed.
- Cannot leap when exhausted; leap distance reduced by half when status is slow.
- Each leap causes a cumulative 30% chance of exhaustion on next leap; chance of exhaustion reduces by 5% each turn.
- Minor food cost; possibly at least as much as attacking.

HIDING (mechanic)
Ability for a Felid to blend into an area by staying perfectly still.
When activated, as long as Felid does not move, gains a +50% Stealth bonus.
Not sure how helpful this would be or if it'd cost food.

WARD
Ability for Felid to mark an area to discourage other animals from approaching the area (YES, I KNOW).
If area is marked, other living animals (including Griffon types) will avoid moving across the square or adjacent.
Lasts for X turns. Ward effectiveness may be based on level of Felid vs Hit Dice of animal monster.

[IronJelly]

So, let's see what we have.

Felid (or at its most generic, "Animal") is a 4-legged beast.
Therefore, it should move fast and possibly leap.
It can rend with claws, but can't rightly manipulate as it uses all paws for walking.
If it holds something, it's in the mouth, so it loses the bite, but should still be able to paw.

I would allow it to hold items in the mouth, but greatly reduce accuracy. Since weapons cannot be trained, using Fighting as default for these actions (if any) makes sense.

Offense is unarmed combat. Unarmed Combat is natural, so at worst +0, same with FIghting.
No throwing. No ranged weaponry. No standard weapon skills.

Since it's on all 4 feet, this might make it more agile and therefore get a Dex bonus and/or a Stealth bonus, but not necessarily a Stealth Skill Bonus.
"Animal" is an animal and as with canine animals, this sort should have an innate Sense Invisible, but not See Invisible.
Some form or bonus to Trap detection due to proximity and ability to observe may make sense.
Dodging is at worst +0.

The original concept was as a familiar, so magic skills are sensible; a +1/+2 to all magic skills.
To counter this, a -1/-2 to spellcasting to compensate as a penalty for not having proper implements to cast spells (hands or speech).

Someone is probably going to counter with "Oh, that's an Ogre" or something; I honestly don't care. If it's a problem, suggest a way to fix it.

Abilities:
LEAPING (mechanic)
- a controlled blink with a 3-4 square distance (distance possibly dependent on Dex Attribute Value), but the path must be empty or contain only floor alterations (Water/lava) and/or gas (including flames/gas).
- If passing through gas/flames/frost, confusion/poison/damage checks ARE done to player as it passes, but should not stop player from arriving on target, unless killed.
- Cannot leap when exhausted; leap distance reduced by half when status is slow.
- Each leap causes a cumulative 30% chance of exhaustion on next leap; chance of exhaustion reduces by 5% each turn.
- Minor food cost; possibly at least as much as attacking.

HIDING (mechanic)
Ability for a Felid to blend into an area by staying perfectly still.
When activated, as long as Felid does not move, gains a +50% Stealth bonus.
Not sure how helpful this would be or if it'd cost food.

WARD
Ability for Felid to mark an area to discourage other animals from approaching the area (YES, I KNOW).
If area is marked, other living animals (including Griffon types) will avoid moving across the square or adjacent.
Lasts for X turns. Ward effectiveness may be based on level of Felid vs Hit Dice of animal monster.

1) ogres are the opposite. high Spellcasting, low magic aptitudes. Having a low spellcasting, high aptitudes doesn't sound so bad.
2) Ward sounds kind of amusing. I suppose it would only offer a chance for non intelligent enemies to not cross it. Actually, being magically based, it would be amusing if besides animals having trouble crossing it, demons would as well, especially if you call it "ward." It shouldn't work if you're hungry or below, and I would maybe have it last a while (and longer based on level), but also have a percentage of it's remaining time drop off any time it is actually crossed, as things walking there who don't care about the scent would still dillute it.

[xopods]

There are distinct, clear, and vital differences between good god lifesaving and felid extra lives. The most obvious is that divine protection is not in any way guaranteed (and the most reliable, Ely's, is an active invocation, making it most similar to DDoor). Felid extra lives are passive, 100% guaranteed, and give you full heal/tele. This is a bad thing, and I would be surprised if it could ever be implemented well.

I didn't say they were the same. I was responding to your assertion that life saving is somehow against the design philosophy of Crawl, when in fact one form of life-saving has existed in the game since basically forever. There's also Death's Door.

I think the idea of cats with a chance to escape death is cool, but I agree that the current way it's done is kind of lame. So I think it needs to change, not be removed. Your issue seems to be with the heal-to-full-and-teleport aspect of it, but there are plenty of things that could be done that would be thematically similar without having the same negative influence on playstyle.

[mageykun]

Okay, let's consider this for a moment.

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
• revive with under some kind(s) of malaise (ie, slow, exhaustion, confusion, high hunger, temporary stat loss, etc), recognizing the draining or disorienting effort in coming back from the dead.
• Some kind of regeneration cool down, so if you're killed again in quick succession you don't get the chance to use any remaining lives.
• "You can't take it with you". You respawn at a new location, but your inventory remains with your corpse to be retrieved (with possible exceptions for things like runes, or in the abyss?).
• Planescape Torment style resurrection. You come back, but without your memories. Apply amnesia to item identification, memorized spells, maps, maybe even skills. Wholesale amnesia or randomized selection from categories could work.
• Upon death, you get dumped into some abyssal labyrinth spiritscape mindscape thing you have to navigate / escape from to get back to the living world / your body before a timer expires or you're killed fo realz. I can already hear the angry cries of all the labyrinth and abyss haters. It's delicious.
• resurrection becomes a probability, instead of a certainty.
• You lose your religion (your god recognizes your death, but not your rebirth). You are barred from rejoining. Needs something to prevent people from doing this on purpose for easy god swapping (maybe it triggers wrath? Or combine with probabilistic resurrection so it's just not a good idea to ever suicide).
• Permanent penalties of some kind. Possibilities: max hp loss, max mp loss, stat loss, spell slot loss, bad mutations, deterioration, etc (ie, "You came back wrong").
• "Death comes for you..." Reapers, resentful at your escape, spend the rest of the game coming after you. Ie, random perma-summon reapars, using something like a penance timer (possibly tied to tension?). Except you've pissed off death, not a god, and it's permanent. Repeated deaths should make it worse. There's room to expand this concept (more enemies than just reapers? Spectral cats?). Maybe death comes after you like hell effects- it doesn't always have to be monsters.
• Each death generates a ghost. You have high (guaranteed?) odds of running into your own ghost(s) in the same game, possibly in a pack.
• Felid resurrection could be treated as necromancy by the good gods.
• Your new body needs to be built out of raw materials that came from somewhere. Good bye inventory! (Either wholesale destruction, or random consumption immune to conservation).
• "You return from the dead... something followed you back!" Mass one time summon demon, summon / animate undead when you return to the world of the living. (Possibly more interesting if there's a roll for this and it doesn't happen every time. It's more exciting if it's unexpected)!
• Be inconsistent. As in, implement more than one of these ideas, and then make a random roll. So players can't plan for or know for sure what bad things will happen if they die. You could come back wrong, suffer amnesia, offend death, get followed by demons, or just get off Scott free! (Yes, I actually included an "all of the above" choice. Sue me).

Right, that's everything I can possibly come up with. If you see something you like, run with it.

[TwilightPhoenix]

IIRC, they used to be able to carry daggers in their mouths or something; as it stands, they can wield decks (in their mouths) and use them effectively, but I really don't understand how those can work and yet wands can't. It's odd to me.

I believe the sole reason they're still allowed to wield decks is so they can worship Nemelex properly without having to wait until Draw One becomes available. Maybe they should be allowed to wield anything but only able to clumsily bash stuff with it, that way they could at least enchant weapons for treasure troves. I don't see them being able to properly use a weapon in any way.

[*]Each death generates a ghost. You have high (guaranteed?) odds of running into your own ghost(s) in the same game, possibly in a pack.

That could be fun.

Your ghost comes into view. x8

[crate]

Well I'm playing a fevm of kiku right now and I don't really see any big design problems or anything. You almost certainly will die at some point since you have such low maxhp (I got killed from full hp by a dragon at one point). The current revival mechanism seems fine to me ... dying sucks, especially since with a 140 xp apt it takes a while to get at least two xls to get your life back; and it's not like you're guaranteed to revive in a good spot, either (since if you died there's a reasonable chance the rest of the floor is dangerous too!)

Taking out extra lives is silly, you might as well just remove felids.

I think the item limitations are kind of interesting but I can see why other people might not agree with that. You end up with somewhat different problems because of them, though often your character will probably end up employing a pretty same-y solution to them (in my case, ddoor/pcloud/haunt).

[xopods]

Hmmm... all this talk about necromancy, having to escape the spirit world, etc. etc. is the wrong direction, I think. I mean, the whole idea of Felids was based on the "cats have nine lives" thing. But cats don't literally die and come back from the dead... they just have an uncanny ability to escape situations that should have killed them.

My suggestion would be to make it something like: when you take a blow that would cause lethal damage, you instead get blinked ("You leap to safety!") and have Swiftness cast on you for free. But the ability has a cooldown, of course, so it'll just give you an extra shot at escaping a deadly situation, not "extra lives" in the Super Mario Bros. sense.

[pratamawirya]

Hmmm... all this talk about necromancy, having to escape the spirit world, etc. etc. is the wrong direction, I think. I mean, the whole idea of Felids was based on the "cats have nine lives" thing. But cats don't literally die and come back from the dead... they just have an uncanny ability to escape situations that should have killed them.

My suggestion would be to make it something like: when you take a blow that would cause lethal damage, you instead get blinked ("You leap to safety!") and have Swiftness cast on you for free. But the ability has a cooldown, of course, so it'll just give you an extra shot at escaping a deadly situation, not "extra lives" in the Super Mario Bros. sense.

This would go nicely with Ely's protection, for example, which is cool.

[Eji1700]

Hmmm... all this talk about necromancy, having to escape the spirit world, etc. etc. is the wrong direction, I think. I mean, the whole idea of Felids was based on the "cats have nine lives" thing. But cats don't literally die and come back from the dead... they just have an uncanny ability to escape situations that should have killed them.

My suggestion would be to make it something like: when you take a blow that would cause lethal damage, you instead get blinked ("You leap to safety!") and have Swiftness cast on you for free. But the ability has a cooldown, of course, so it'll just give you an extra shot at escaping a deadly situation, not "extra lives" in the Super Mario Bros. sense.

I'll second this and this line of thought. The nine lives concept is a sound one, but the current mechanic, and methods used to balance it, are poor.

[yogaFLAME]

I find much of the tedium to be tied to the -4 HP apt. Spriggans at -3 don't feel nearly as.. blah.

I could give or take the extra lives mechanic. I do like the blink-to-safety proposal, as that eliminates much of the degenerate rune death-ninja stuff.

[IronJelly]

I'm attempting on CAO to get a FeFE going, and I've had some trouble so far. Maybe it's my playstyle, since I'm not used to casters.

But, I will say, now that I'm trying to use Felid, I don't like it. No other race can't use wands or weapons, that leaves quite a bit of useless junk around on the floors, and honestly, I think the lack of wand use may be too crippling to the race. Of course, you could sacrifice all the useless stuff to Nemelex, but that seems both tedious, and shoehorned.

I have a weird idea, but hear me out. What if you couldn't use a wand in the normal way, but instead, being a furry animal, you could charge your fur with it's ambient static power. as a Felid (and MAYBE Kobolds, being hairy, could have this), you like roll around on a wand or something, draining all it's charges. doing so gives your fur an equal number of charges. These are expended automatically on any attacker that hits you in melee. One type of charge at a time, so rolling on a different wand will erase all the charges you currently have.

Essentially, this justifies cats being able to use wands, albeit in an interesting and different way, where they may have to plan ahead a little. Also, this makes wands of healing a bad thing for them (they have no way to zap themselves). It would make certain areas of the game interesting if you had the ability to auto-retaliate against enemies that hit you. confusion would be great for stabbing as well.

[njvack]

No other race can't use wands or weapons, that leaves quite a bit of useless junk around on the floors, and honestly, I think the lack of wand use may be too crippling to the race. Of course, you could sacrifice all the useless stuff to Nemelex, but that seems both tedious, and shoehorned.

Eh, every non-Nemelexite leaves a dungeon full of useless items. The total number of useful weapons and wands for most characters in an entire game is probably less than 20. Fe/Nemelex differs from other species in that you can sac absolutely every weapon, wand, and armour, instead of almost every item of those types.

I think no wands at all is fine.

[JeffQyzt]

...and MAYBE Kobolds, being hairy...

What? Who says they're hairy?

[crate]

Lack of wand use is not really too crippling, felids are not that hard as long as you choose a decent background (certainly easier than mummies, for instance!). You can argue that it is boring if you like though. Non-berserker non-healer backgrounds that don't start with a book are very hard but I think that's ok.

[Blade]

After reading a lot of talk about it, I agree that most backgrounds that start with books are probably fine. It seems silly to keep them so utterly helpless in about half of the existing backgrounds, though. No other species (not even deep elves) has such severe restrictions.

[Jabberwocky]

Okay, let's consider this for a moment.


[*]Planescape Torment style resurrection. You come back, but without your memories. Apply amnesia to item identification, memorized spells, maps, maybe even skills. Wholesale amnesia or randomized selection from categories could work.

Amnesia of that type has the problem that there is nothing from stopping me from writing down the description of every, scroll, randart, potion, and map I find in case I die . This is just tedious and annoying.

[Blade]

Felids had their UC and fighting apts bumped to 0 in Trunk, and their summoning apt was lowered to 0. This change doesn't suddenly make melee felids strong, but it's certainly an improvement. At this point, I've mostly retreated from my initial position in this thread that they should be removed. More tweaks may be in order, but a complete overhaul is probably not necessary.

[BlackSheep]

Evocations was also bumped up.

[IronJelly]

Okay, let's consider this for a moment.


[*]Planescape Torment style resurrection. You come back, but without your memories. Apply amnesia to item identification, memorized spells, maps, maybe even skills. Wholesale amnesia or randomized selection from categories could work.

Amnesia of that type has the problem that there is nothing from stopping me from writing down the description of every, scroll, randart, potion, and map I find in case I die . This is just tedious and annoying.

Could always re-randomize them.

[XuaXua]

Evocations was also bumped up.

Evocations works on rings, amulets, wands, rods, artefact weapons/armour with special abilities, decks, and miscellaneous items.

Felids can only use rings, amulets, decks, and miscellaneous items.

I don't view an Evo bump as much of a boost, but more of a lock-in of Nemelex as the diety of choice.

[dtsund]

Okay, let's consider this for a moment.


[*]Planescape Torment style resurrection. You come back, but without your memories. Apply amnesia to item identification, memorized spells, maps, maybe even skills. Wholesale amnesia or randomized selection from categories could work.

Amnesia of that type has the problem that there is nothing from stopping me from writing down the description of every, scroll, randart, potion, and map I find in case I die . This is just tedious and annoying.

Could always re-randomize them.

Then players will just sort their stashes, and know item identities by location.

[galehar]

Evocations was also bumped up.

Evocations works on rings, amulets, wands, rods, artefact weapons/armour with special abilities, decks, and miscellaneous items.

Felids can only use rings, amulets, decks, and miscellaneous items.

I don't view an Evo bump as much of a boost, but more of a lock-in of Nemelex as the diety of choice.

The commit message:

Make felids better with evocations.

Just because they can't hold a wand or rod doesn't mean they can't evoke
the powers of jewellery or misc items well.

[XuaXua]

Never said it didn't make sense.

[BlackSheep]

From 'Questions too small to need their own thread':

Felids currently have no way to enchant weapons / ammo.

The only way you're getting into that stash is if you find or acquire a suitable demon sword, which is exceedingly unlikely.

Ah, that's too bad. Hopefully someone will eventually make it so they can "clumsily bash" with weapons in their mouth. Ah well, thanks magey.

Is there a reason we couldn't let felids enchant weapons or armor? I can't think of any other reason they'd want to besides opening a trove, and most things in the trove would likely be useless, but at least they'd have a chance to find some jewellery or books.

[Sojiro]

I like Felids, even though I don't play them often anymore.

My favorite part about them is that they're cats, and are not people. As expected it makes them quite different from other races.
My second favorite thing is the resurrection. Crawl has a pretty vicious learning curve. One learns from one's mistake, but in Crawl they often kill you. And then you have to do it aaall over again. I still bitterly the part after when I became good enough to reach the Temple. I'd find something I didn't know, get killed, and have to redo the early game that I already knew perfectly. So I ended up doing half an hour of redoing the same shit over and over, 10 minute of new and entertaining things, followed by a couple minutes of painful learning. Felid resurrection let me discover a few things and get killed by trying dangerous stuff to see if it would work or not. I found it a great learning tool.

If Felids could be made more newbie friendly they could become a very good learning tool for new players. Death is serious (you do have a very limited amount of lives) but it doesn't force you to go over the early game again. You also have less items to juggle.


Personally, I'd love to see a "pounce" mechanic. I was actually going to suggest a racial ability that let them make a "pounce" before reading this thread, it would let them move 1~3 tiles (depending on level) and attack at the same time. I'd make their claws actually good at stabbing during a pounce, so that Stabbing Aptitude finally becomes something other than a newbie trap. It would also let Felids escape by jumping over enemies, or cross moats.
And then you could link it to their resurrection ability. Since cats having nine lives is more about being able to escape danger than actual resurrection, having them blink rather than teleport (along with a message pointing out that they've just leaped to safety) would make sense on top of balancing this a bit better. And preventing a killing blow is already something we have with the good gos, so it's been play-tested plenty already.

Finally they should be able to wield stuff, if only to enchant items for Troves. It would also be a way for them to use Wands.

[TwilightPhoenix]

One thing while we're at it, could Felids no longer decapitate hydras with their claws? While the mental image is hilarious, I doubt small cat claws would be able to slice hydra heads off. And it makes dealing with them a huge pain for melee Felids, especially for followers of Trog. Sure, you could always just run, but sometimes the game likes to trap you in a corridor between two of them while you don't have any source of blink or tele for whatever reason.

[TwilightPhoenix]

Well, goes to show how much I've been avoiding doing melee with Felids against Hydras then for the past however long.

[carbonbasedlifeform]

My interests in felids would raise if they would have some really interesting feature(s) like:
"You are able to wear hides and benefit more from them."(fixing low resistancesfrom lacking body slots)
"You are able to attack from landing"-when any monster is visible within 2-3 tiles-you can jump next to him and attack in the same turn(some sort of escaping method,but only when you see monsters around)
Low hp can be fixed in dragon form (impying improvement in fire and transmutations skill aptitiudes)

[snow]

I like felids. They're not the best species but they can be fun to play. And... they don't chop heads anymore? Lame. Hydras weren't really a challenge anyway... just use your god abilities. Also I don't think they should have any form of armour... that's sort of the whole point of them.

[TwilightPhoenix]

Why not "Felid Barding". Pick up a hide and enchant it. Instead of getting dragon or troll armor, you get a kitty sweater instead!

...okay, I'm not really serious there, but that's the closest I can think of armor that'd make sense for a Felid.

[Konebred]

This might be a bit out there, but check it out. Change Felid to Familiar. Put in a mechanic that gives you the chance to convert any spellcaster based on your charms skill. Make the total amount of things you can have charmed based on level. You can probably take away the nine-lives thingy at this point.

[Adamaxis]

Why not give Felid a stealth premium? Increase their natural stealth ability and give them racial inviso abiltiy - in the games I've played as a Felid, early game inviso makes them more bearable and allows them to be very sneaky. They're basically 'magical cats', yea? Maybe even a passive danger sense (an additional square of 'visibility') - cats are very keen. And why can't they swim in deep water? Cats are very good swimmers. As far as stats go - not being able to use equipment is a huge nerf. A fixed Dex increase every few levels would be nice too, and maybe balancing out their magic Aptitudes a bit? And some late game ability development would be great - evasion is just an atrocious defense by itself, even with maxed out Dodging and high Dex. Just food for thought.

[Mumcon]

As just a casual Crawl player, I'm not too familiar with its design philosophy. And I don't know what kind of design adjustments for felids are favored by members of the dev team at this time. But I think it's all right for me to go ahead and state my thoughts while this thread is among the recently active. I've played a felid caster through to the extended late game twice, so that's the limit of my experience.

Suggestions to drastically amend the felid species don't make sense to me. If such a big change is going to be made, one indeed might as well just scrap the species and perhaps design a new one. The inability of felids to use many types of items, while still having versatility of background, is interesting to me. From my perspective, felids do have some sort of problem, but I don't believe it's the level of problem that would justify the removal of the species.

My best estimate of that problem is: felids trade being weaker and less desirable than other species is almost every way (though they're somewhat rounded in their weakness) for an ability that amounts to a save-restore (as xopods said, a "get-out-of-blunder-free card"). The former just means the latter has to be used more frequently. I seem to recall one of the justifications for extra lives was for people to play more adventurously. However, due to the former (i.e. the weakness of the species), you need to play a lot more defensively/cautiously (I understand what people meant when they referenced the idea of a "crippled spriggan" here), and due to the latter (i.e. extra lives) you are indiscriminately and completely (yes, even if you teleport into danger again, because you can has 2 extra lives at a time) saved no matter how much you screwed up. What this means for me: I'm weaker and have more trouble with various things throughout the game, but at least I'm forgiven for my various impatient attempts to do things beyond my ability/skill. Felid is my preferred species for when I don't feel like concentrating or making equipment decisions, but it's far from interesting. Oh, and another thing I don't like is that you lose all your mutations and rot when you're revived, erasing all the interesting things that led to your current state.

My guess is that if the extra lives mechanic isn't changed, then even if felid have their aptitudes and such improved to the point that they're more desirable and interesting to play with various backgrounds, people will feel that it's unfair for them to be essentially as good as an average species plus also experience no serious repercussions when they make serious mistakes.

People have made many interesting suggestions in this thread already for how to change the extra lives feature, and I haven't read all of them. xopods's suggestion for a Death's Door-like effect made me think that the real issue may be how extra lives let you run away, rather than let you press on. If you want a feature that makes players more adventurous, have something that lets them effectively "live again" when they would have died, but doesn't amount to an "escape". Like shooting yourself in the head to active your persona or something, utillizing a dramatic feature like resurrection should make you feel cool, not like a screw-up.

My tentative idea is, on top of improving felids defensively in order to make utilization of extra lives less inevitable (I like Adamaxis's post on that topic), change the "extra lives" feature to mean that upon getting killed, after a few turns of delay, a full restore of HP and MP (like Borgnjor's Revivification, without the max HP loss), guaranteed successful casting of the Dispersal spell's effect, and ~2 turns of Death's Door (enough time to use a blink scroll to run and a teleport scroll and have it begin to, but also enough time to make a comeback). If that's judged too broken, leaving the HP fairly low (similar to if you'd actually cast Death's Door) might make it less so. And maybe a massive cooldown between uses, like 10,000 turns, instead of only allowing 2 lives at once. Oh, and while I'm at it, I'll suggest granting extra lives every time you get a rune instead of after a certain amount of EXP. Maybe then the Dispersal effect would say something like "your abyssal rune glows". Maybe you could even lose the rune if you resurrect? Anyway, I just kind of ran with this line of thinking, so let me off if it sounds like a bad fanfiction rather than a realistic feature.

[Bloax]

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