Robes! Everywhere!

[Curio]

This bugs me since long-long time.
In Crawl sadly there's not much transitory value of a medium armor (it's either a plate mail or a robe. which, I think should be fixed. but i digress) and if you choose EV path you end up wearing a robe for the whole game.

Do not misunderstand me - i like robes in all its diversity. But there's almost nothing except them (animal skins quite rare compared to robes). For spell-casters it's fine and atmospheric and thematic and fitting etc.
But what about melee fighters? I can't imagine anyone except monks to wear a robe in a fight. Come to think of it, robes actually would obstruct the movement in a battle. That's why the bottom part of a shaolin robe made more like a pants - to move freely.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_b-jw0MlcPlg/Rsld0IYZ1lI/AAAAAAAAAnc/072qrLZ3BXg/s400/ShaolinMonk.jpg

Also, same goes for stealth-based characters. It's quite hard to sneak around stepping on the bottom part of the robe all the time.

As of now, it seems to me like there's a whole hidden branch filled with kobolds and goblins knitting robes day and night and fat overseer whipping his whip at them yelling "More! We need more robes to fill the whole dungeon!"

Actually I'm not just ranting. I have a proposal:
1)What if there's gonna be added more variants of "animal skin" and risen the chance of it appearing in the dungeon.
2)Add new item "cloth suit/costume/garb". Picture black ninja-suit on an assassin. Or evasive fighter in a vest with his biceps showing off.

Naturally, there's gonna be needed new tiles for this and I ready to contribute as much as I can for this cause.

[Curio]

Demon whips appear only from mid-to-end-game while plate armor can be spawned in D:1.

"you won't use a chain mail if you have a plate mail"
...unless you are too unskilled to use heavy plate. Unfortunately that's not the case right now.

Anyway, that's completely Off-topic here. I'm more interested in opinions on adding more cloth armor variants.

[danr]

Is this a purely cosmetic suggestion or are you suggesting new types with different properties?

[KoboldLord]

Now, now. That isn't even true.

If you're specifically planning to use Ozocubu's Armor, then you need light armor to go with it, but leather armor is negligibly different than robes once you're past the extremely early game. Basically, once you're past the Temple, even. Leather armor opens up a couple other brands, and steam dragon armor gives decent armor value and guaranteed damage reduction if your resistances are already in order, while still counting as light armor.

Moving up a step, while the mundane medium armors are all crappy, the various medium dragon armors are as protective as heavy armor, and troll armor has its niche as well. It is not at all difficult to cast top-end spells like Fire Storm in them, although if your defenses are good it doesn't actually matter if you can cast the top-end spells.

Do your proposed ninja gear and exotic skins have any gameplay effect, or are they basically just palette-swapped robes? The AC vs. EV penalty curve is already fairly heavily populated, and I'm not sure there's another place for a new armor that is neither strictly superior nor redundant with the existing ones. Possible brands are a potential source of differentiation, but even then you're just trying on whichever you see until you get a brand you like, and the change would be functionally the same as adding the other brands to the old armor.

[Curio]

Don't want to digress even more but have to reply =)

2minmay
true. Problem for me that I want medium armour to be important even if you have plate on your hands. In your example with axes - if you have small skill with Axes - you'll be missing a lot of targets with War axe, so you have to use hand axe for awhile just to increase your proficiency.

2KoboldLord
I wasn't mentioned dragon/troll armors because they spawn not so often. Again, in comparison. Dungeon is littered with robes on the other hand.

2KoboldLord
2danr
I'm a tile-person, and proposals about implementation of new features in a game-balance is not my Parish - let the devs decide what needs to be done =)
So, my answer is yes, I propose purely cosmetic change. But not palette-swapped and, in no means, more robes! Adding new inventory icon for "cloth garb" and dozen of unique player-doll outfits ranging from simple pants+shirt to aforementioned shaolin monk outfit =D

[Curio]

However, it would be nice to encourage players to wear corresponding gear to their play style by adding hidden bonus/malus in stats like orcish/dwarven/elven outfits have:

Robes -
malus to stealth. In measure how elven boots/cloak add bonus to stealth.
Very small bonus to spellcast success - it's easier for casters to gesture in loose robes.

Cloth garb, animal skin -
bonus to stealth on par with elven cloak stealth bonus
malus to spellcast success - proportional to bonus on the robe.

I don't know how melee can be implemented. And if there is need in that at all.

[galehar]

In your example with axes - if you have small skill with Axes - you'll be missing a lot of targets with War axe, so you have to use hand axe for awhile just to increase your proficiency.

Nope. It's better to use the war axe. You'll hit less often but you'll do more damage overall. It's the same with plate mail versus chain mail; the plate mail will impair your evasion more but it's still better in nearly every case.

There's also the speed penalty to be considered. To take a more extreme example, you're better off using a trident than a bardiche at low skill. Even if you don't have a shield. And I agree with Curio, it would be great if we could do the same with armour and make the middle armour useful.

[jpeg]

If this is just about your character looking different, you can change the equipment tiles with the '-' command (or via the command panel).
Feel free to go through the robe variants displayed there (section "Body") and outline those you feel might work as normal (or maybe ego/randart) robe tiles along with the different-coloured ones. Some of them might already be in use for unrandarts, though.

[dpeg]

In your example with axes - if you have small skill with Axes - you'll be missing a lot of targets with War axe, so you have to use hand axe for awhile just to increase your proficiency.

Nope. It's better to use the war axe. You'll hit less often but you'll do more damage overall. It's the same with plate mail versus chain mail; the plate mail will impair your evasion more but it's still better in nearly every case.

I believe there should be threats where accuracy is so important that you'll downgrade your weapon deliberately.

[Stormfox]

I believe there should be threats where accuracy is so important that you'll downgrade your weapon deliberately.

The best early game example of that is imps. Unless you're hitting consistently or can one-shot them with your weapon, they regenerate faster than almost any early stage weapon can damage them if you miss at all.

[Danei]

I believe there should be threats where accuracy is so important that you'll downgrade your weapon deliberately.

The best early game example of that is imps. Unless you're hitting consistently or can one-shot them with your weapon, they regenerate faster than almost any early stage weapon can damage them if you miss at all.

In my experience, it's almost always easier to kill an imp with a less accurate, stronger weapon. The combination of regeneration and blinking means that even if you can hit it consistently, you have to hope it doesn't blink while you're doing so and regenerate all of it's health before you can even get next to it again.

Not that this is necessarily a problem; I just don't personally feel that imps are a good example of a time when you'd want to use a weaker, more accurate weapon.

The only reason I can think of to use, for example, a hand axe over a war axe at low axes skill, is if getting hit twice in a row by something is going to cause an emergency. The improved accuracy and speed of the hand axe don't by themselves compensate for the lower damage, but taking smaller chunks of damage at a time when your max health is low is sometimes desirable.

I believe this means there are not enough of those threats mentioned by dpeg.

[Curio]

Thread off-topped to Abyss. Oh well

If this is just about your character looking different, you can change the equipment tiles with the '-' command (or via the command panel).
Feel free to go through the robe variants displayed there (section "Body") and outline those you feel might work as normal (or maybe ego/randart) robe tiles along with the different-coloured ones. Some of them might already be in use for unrandarts, though.

Changed tile in such way stays the same for the whole game.
The whole point of my first post was the fact that there isn't any other clothing in the dungeon except robes. That is pretty damn strange.
There's so many already made pants and shirts (even karate suit!) and I see no sane reason why they not used in-game and must be accessed using auxiliary menus.
But it's just my lonesome opinion as it seems
So I stop ranting and go stamp out more refined unique tiles

[Morosgovanyi]

Something that should be changed about robes is the tile: it make them looks like pajamas ("pajamas, pajamas everywhere")

[galehar]

Somehow I forgot to answer the OP, but I support the idea. Having various types of clothes as alternatives to robes seems good. I like some diversity. We can have normal clothes just to replace unbranded robes for a start. Later, we can decide if some of them could be branded. I'm not sure adding little bonus and penalties to cloth types is interesting. But then again, we can always decide about that later.

[jpeg]

Somehow I forgot to answer the OP, but I support the idea. Having various types of clothes as alternatives to robes seems good. I like some diversity. We can have normal clothes just to replace unbranded robes for a start. Later, we can decide if some of them could be branded. I'm not sure adding little bonus and penalties to cloth types is interesting. But then again, we can always decide about that later.

I disagree. I don't think we should add variety for the sake of variety because it makes player expect a game-play difference when there's none. (It also confuses developers. It took us ages to realize that helms and helmets were in fact identical and to remove the former. Actually, on that topic, I'd support getting rid of the helmet subtypes.)

I also think there's no room for distinguishing among robes in terms of AC and EV that's not already covered by egos.

Making more robe tiles generally available is fine with me, but I really wouldn't want more item types to go along with it.

[dpeg]

If we keep in mind that we want to make it easier to find that robe of resistance in the huge pile of robes, it would be possible to have robes always come with an ego, whereas "cloth" (say) never has. Of course, that's nothing we couldn't achieve with adjectives as well...

[Kate]

I disagree. I don't think we should add variety for the sake of variety because it makes player expect a game-play difference when there's none. (It also confuses developers. It took us ages to realize that helms and helmets were in fact identical and to remove the former. Actually, on that topic, I'd support getting rid of the helmet subtypes.)

I very much agree with this, the helmet subtypes are a pet peeve of mine (I think wizard hats and caps could be consolidated into one hat type as well). Some of the helmet types do have tiny gameplay effects (visors block bites, horned/spiked helmets do more headbutt damage) but there's a number of helmet subtypes that just don't do anything and would be better served by just having alternate tiles (and maybe different cosmetic descriptions when examined).

[Curio]

Ok, scratch bonus/malus proposition.

What droved me to post is that in some other topic someone said something like "I search all the robes until I find a black one for my necromancer. Purple one just won't do"
And I said to myself. Hey, I do the same.
But that's not an option for melee character. Quite frankly, there is no option at all!

I like variety of helmets!
I would like more variety in gauntlets/gloves, cloaks(item icon) and boots!
I very, very, very would like to have a choice in cloth garbs.
But hey, it's just me then =)

[danr]

I think it would be worthwhile adding just one more type of robe, a "tunic", that could be starting equipment for light-armoured fighters like I think Gladiators should be (see my thread re: gladiators). This would be a cosmetic difference, just like gauntlets and gloves are essentially the same thing, but would just make fighters with robes look less like wanna-be wizards.

[galehar]

I disagree. I don't think we should add variety for the sake of variety because it makes player expect a game-play difference when there's none.

Probably because currently almost all different items have different properties. If we add more variations to body armour but also to gloves, hats, helms and boots, then player will stop assuming different items have different properties and accept them as flavour.

If we keep in mind that we want to make it easier to find that robe of resistance in the huge pile of robes, it would be possible to have robes always come with an ego, whereas "cloth" (say) never has. Of course, that's nothing we couldn't achieve with adjectives as well...

Hey, that's a great idea.

[Curio]

I think it would be worthwhile adding just one more type of robe, a "tunic", that could be starting equipment for light-armoured fighters like I think Gladiators should be (see my thread re: gladiators). This would be a cosmetic difference, just like gauntlets and gloves are essentially the same thing, but would just make fighters with robes look less like wanna-be wizards.

That would be a start.
But stealth-based characters will still feel left-out
That's why i proposed universal "garb" variant. (still not sure if this is best-sounding name for it in english)
How I imagined it:
It have 1 new icon for inventory (+1 for runed one) and dozen of tile variants (like robes have now) differing only in appearance from tunics to vests.

[galehar]

I think it would be worthwhile adding just one more type of robe, a "tunic", that could be starting equipment for light-armoured fighters like I think Gladiators should be (see my thread re: gladiators). This would be a cosmetic difference, just like gauntlets and gloves are essentially the same thing, but would just make fighters with robes look less like wanna-be wizards.

That would be a start.
But stealth-based characters will still feel left-out
That's why i proposed universal "garb" variant. (still not sure if this is best-sounding name for it in english)
How I imagined it:
It have 1 new icon for inventory (+1 for runed one) and dozen of tile variants (like robes have now) differing only in appearance from tunics to vests.

That's an excellent idea. Just add a single generic "cloth" type and go wild on the tiles variation without cluttering the game with useless subtypes. Add matching descriptions so console gets to keep a bit of the flavour

[Grimm]

Call it "cloth armour" to fit the naming pattern of other armours.

[danr]

How about "Denim Suit"?

[Grimm]

Corduroy.

[jpeg]

If we keep in mind that we want to make it easier to find that robe of resistance in the huge pile of robes, it would be possible to have robes always come with an ego, whereas "cloth" (say) never has.

Such an item already exists. It's called "animal skin".

Probably because currently almost all different items have different properties. If we add more variations to body armour but also to gloves, hats, helms and boots, then player will stop assuming different items have different properties and accept them as flavour.

That's a good point. That said, I wouldn't mind getting rid of caps in favour of wizard hats either. Is there any difference between gauntlets and gloves? (I think there should be.)

[dpeg]

If we keep in mind that we want to make it easier to find that robe of resistance in the huge pile of robes, it would be possible to have robes always come with an ego, whereas "cloth" (say) never has.

Such an item already exists. It's called "animal skin".

I am not too happy with giving animal skins to gladiators. (They're a good fit for berserkers.)

Probably because currently almost all different items have different properties. If we add more variations to body armour but also to gloves, hats, helms and boots, then player will stop assuming different items have different properties and accept them as flavour.

That's a good point. That said, I wouldn't mind getting rid of caps in favour of wizard hats either. Is there any difference between gauntlets and gloves? (I think there should be.)

Yes, there is: gauntlets provide one more AC than gloves do, but cannot be worn with the Claws 3 mutation. Or was that only the plan?

[coyo7e]

Yes, there is: gauntlets provide one more AC than gloves do, but cannot be worn with the Claws 3 mutation. Or was that only the plan?

Yeah that has no effect in game as of now to my knowledge, but I agree that it would be a positive change.

Perhaps instead of gauntlets being unusable at Claws 3, it should be unusable at Claws 2+? Gauntlets are typically made out of heavy leather and cloth or actual metal, and personally I'd like to see them give AC. Fingerless gloves would be most reasonable for usability with claws but I don't think anybody wants a third glove type, and you could always slit holes in them for your claws.

[Curio]

That's an excellent idea. Just add a single generic "cloth" type and go wild on the tiles variation without cluttering the game with useless subtypes. Add matching descriptions so console gets to keep a bit of the flavour

Yes! That's exactly what I had in mind in a first place.

Call it "cloth armour" to fit the naming pattern of other armours.

That is pretty simplistic but also very universal. I like it.

It could be named something like this: "cloth armour (tunic)", "cloth armour (kimono), "cloth armour (shinobi uniform)" and so on.
And some classes could at least start with some thematic armours. Gladiator in tunic and assassin in ninja suit would be awesome. Also, add some variety to mages is a good idea I think. You can be a mage not only in a robe =)

[Grimm]

I just had a flash of Gandalf in a Speedo.

Best to keep mages in robes.

[Curio]

I just had a flash of Gandalf in a Speedo.

Best to keep mages in robes.

Ughh. Maybe you right.

Anyway - here's a "cloth armor (kimono)" for example.


There could be another variation - black one with dark-red belt

[galehar]

Call it "cloth armour" to fit the naming pattern of other armours.

That is pretty simplistic but also very universal. I like it.

What are you talking about? The only armours that have the word armour in their name are leather and dragon ones. We don't have "robe armour" or "chain mail armour" (fortunately!). "Coth armour" sounds awful.

[Grimm]

The other armours are usually called "mail" - chain mail, scale mail, plate mail. This is due to construction.

I agree that "cloth armour" doesn't have historical precedent (a quick goog shows it in WoW).

How about "clothing"?

[KoboldLord]

Nethack Brass added two sets of fetish gear to round out cloth armors. A four-piece maid ensemble and a two-piece nurse ensemble, if I remember correctly, plus accessories for both. I don't think the presence of these armors improved gameplay.

I don't really care at all if half of all robes are palette swapped to being a kimono or toga or something, but I hope it at least remains tasteful.

[Curio]

Call it "cloth armour" to fit the naming pattern of other armours.

That is pretty simplistic but also very universal. I like it.

What are you talking about? The only armours that have the word armour in their name are leather and dragon ones. We don't have "robe armour" or "chain mail armour" (fortunately!). "Coth armour" sounds awful.

Well, excuse me. English is not my native language and that variant seemed fine to me.
So, then I leave name debate to others

Nethack Brass added two sets of fetish gear to round out cloth armors. A four-piece maid ensemble and a two-piece nurse ensemble, if I remember correctly, plus accessories for both. I don't think the presence of these armors improved gameplay.

I don't really care at all if half of all robes are palette swapped to being a kimono or toga or something, but I hope it at least remains tasteful.

Unlike nethack it's only one item type more.

Also, great idea about toga!

[galehar]

If you make a suit of armor out of cloth, you'll probably call it "cloth armor."

But it's not an armour made out of cloth. It's just normal clothes. It's a generic object that can be filled with whatever clothing flavour the author wants to. I'm not a native speaker either, so I'm not sure about the name, but probably either clothes or clothing.

Technically, it's a single new armour_type (example: ARM_CLOTHES) and we use the plus2 member as an index for flavour, like we do for boots and helms. Would be good to always provide a description to go along with the tile. Some can have 2 versions (for branded ones) or we can reserve brands for robes.