Draconian Armour Balancing and Feedback before 0.11

[DuxOrbis]

I'd like some feedback about the Draconian armour changes in 0.10. Namely, has it been easier or harder for your chosen class with the new scheme? What changes have you made in playstyle?

I am of the opinion that Draconians should get dragon armour back, with some flavorful twists to it's use. Robes being off limits makes sense at least thematically regarding wings, and early resist and up to +4 AC denial is sufficient balancing for the heaviest natural AC medium species. But over half the armor in the game variety wise is dragon armor. Which is magical, and made from the body of a creature with the shape of a dragon. Why can Draconians not wear them? Of all races it should SYNERGIZE with them if anything.

For balance or flavor you could cause Draconian powers to be interrupted by the dragon magics in the armor unless it is the appropriate type for their color. ie. mottled armour on anythign but a mottled Draconian could block their breath weapon, or remove their innate draconian resistance. While the mottled draconian would see a bonus to it's sticky flame duration, or lower food cost, or faster breath regen, the much needed late game boosts to Draconian breathes could be tied with wearing the skin of vanquished kin, dragon lore is full of symbolic transfer of power from one dragon to another, in Crawl it's their armour.

All while being a mid to late game bonus that is still random and flavorful, while not denying them AC or new resists (that significant nerf to non-color matched armour would offset this versatility). Draconians are supposed to make the player flexible. Not underpowered.

[crate]

Dr is still one of the easier races in the game, maybe easier than before the armour change since the extra aux slots give you more AC than your robe did before (and by the time dragon armour starts appearing you will have good AC on dr anyway since you will have leveled up). You can certainly argue that aux slots are less interesting than body armour but no aux slots though.

Presumably the flavour for dr losing the body slot is they are already wearing dragon armour (their skin).

[DuxOrbis]

They could stand some balancing if they are too easy as is while being limited in armor variety. +13 AC is pretty good by endgame, but all dragon armor except steam and mottled that is fully enchanted is much, much better still. I guess it comes down to, it is still viable, but can we get to end game with the same AC as other more versatile species? How do other stats compare? Does a breath that gets outclassed late game, and some much earlier than that, justify such an exception to the armor scheme?

[crate]

I am not sure that I agree that 8 base AC plus 8 enchantment (if you find the scrolls!!) and a -3 evasion modifier is better than a flat +12 AC and 0 evasion modifier (or the other dragon armours, especiallystorm and gold dragon armour which are mediocre to bad most of the time). Dr basically get a super-robe for free, and I think looking at it that way is better for comparing them to other races.

[DuxOrbis]

That means this version has removed dragon armour for Draconians, that is, basically a resist and given them a 'super-robe' for free as you said.

By level 27 that +12 (wiki is old but says +13 max AC) versus 16 AC (don't forget Guaranteed damage reduction!Which i don't think Draconian natural AC has.) for a -3 EV tradoff.
By that level I don't think there is too much of a difference between 3 or 4 more AC and -3EV, you are also going to see Dragons well before XL 27, so there's balance to consider through the stages of the game. More access to mid game AC, GDR and a resist with armour than without.

If that is too powerful, I'd still rather have the mid game variety and options between interesting body armor than passive end game super robes. You can go ahead and cap Draconian natural AC at something lower. Plus there's so much room for flavor with some unique Draconian interaction with dragon armor than just restricting it's use.

[TwilightPhoenix]

Draconians don't have GDR. Characters in real armor do. To me, that seems to be a fair trade for the free AC they get.

[Volteccer_Jack]

Draconians get +4 AC at start, and gain another 9, for +13 AC at xl27. That's more AC than Mottled Dragon Armour, without the scroll cost or the EV penalty. Yeah, they don't make decisions about body armour, but restricting any armour slot will necessarily remove potential decisions.

Why can Draconians not wear them? Of all races it should SYNERGIZE with them if anything.

Why? Should trolls get a bonus for wearing each other's skins?

[DuxOrbis]

Draconians get +4 AC at start, and gain another 9, for +13 AC at xl27. That's more AC than Mottled Dragon Armour, without the scroll cost or the EV penalty. Yeah, they don't make decisions about body armour, but restricting any armour slot will necessarily remove potential decisions.

Reducing variety seems like a bad design decision.

Why can Draconians not wear them? Of all races it should SYNERGIZE with them if anything.

Why? Should trolls get a bonus for wearing each other's skins?

Perhaps they should get only 50 extra regen and the current malus to food cost. That means you get diminishing returns. Way more food cost on top of a troll's prohibitively costly food needs does not sound broken, it wouldn't be optimal, and certainly not optimal or as broken as a Troll with a ring of regen or two and/or the spell. From what people tell me Troll's lose steam in late game anyway, given this is Crawl by endgame you become the prime specimen of your species, trolls could have 50 more regen on a body slot and not be overpowered.

The diminishing returns of Dragon armour on Draconians would be to non-matching colors. You'd however get one way to get a bonus if you matched the color, without making all dragon armour totally useless. At level 10 a Draconian has 7 natural AC and zero GDR, that's worse than chain mail, perhaps worse than scale and ring mail as well given they reduce the max value of monster damage by more than 1/5 and up to 1/3.

This also makes Draconians more viable melee characters in a more even progression from early to midgame, early game AC but poor armor variety very early, midgame gets possibly troll armor again, or just robes, or none of those and only early dragon armors, and keeps their late game AC lower, while raising defense with GDR, all while adding flavor and player choice.

So for worse variety, and I would argue worse armour mid game, and only late game do you get high AC and zero GDR, an unusual situation, you have a Draconian that feels like an exception for balance reasons not fully articulated from the switch from only robes and dragon armour, to no armor and only secondary armor.

Get rid of some natural AC, and don't phone in their lack of robes, and worse the magical dragon armor that fits to everyone else's bodies even better than robes do.

[xopods]

I think Draconians are just about perfect now. I ascended my first DrTm in the current version, and he felt neither too weak nor too overpowered.

As far as "interesting" goes, I think a race with peripheral slots and no body slot is interesting, precisely because so many other races have a body slot and few or no peripheral slots. Yeah, there's less (well, pretty much no) variety in peripheral slot items, but by the time dragon armors start becoming an option, you're also swimming in randarts, which makes for interesting equipment decisions.

That said, I think the game could really stand to have more variety in base types for peripheral slots, e.g. some +2 AC, -1 EV "steel boots" or whatever, +2 AC gauntlets that give a small but unavoidable malus to spellcasting, "soft boots" that give no AC but a small bonus to stealth, etc.

[njvack]

I'm a little confused -- why is storm armour worse than plate? It looks like it's one better, EV-wise, and rElec is at least modestly useful...

[tasonir]

I'm sure I've suggested this before but I'm going to repeat it - Storm dragon armor needs to be buffed to -4EV. It's still heavier than fire/ice, so you don't get the 10 AC for nothing, but there's no reason to jump all the way up to -5 EV.

At -4 I think some people would use it? Maybe? I haven't ever so far.

[eeviac]

13 guaranteed AC that requires no xp or scrolls and doesn't hinder spellcasting is good, if boring for the reasons minmay stated. Felids continue to exist though so boring is apparently OK.

[Volteccer_Jack]

Perhaps they should get only 50 extra regen and the current malus to food cost. That means you get diminishing returns. Way more food cost on top of a troll's prohibitively costly food needs does not sound broken, it wouldn't be optimal, and certainly not optimal or as broken as a Troll with a ring of regen or two and/or the spell. From what people tell me Troll's lose steam in late game anyway, given this is Crawl by endgame you become the prime specimen of your species, trolls could have 50 more regen on a body slot and not be overpowered.

The diminishing returns of Dragon armour on Draconians would be to non-matching colors. You'd however get one way to get a bonus if you matched the color, without making all dragon armour totally useless.

You've missed my point. It's not made FOR trolls/dragons, the way orcish armour is made for orcs. It's made OF trolls/dragons. So I don't see any reason they should get any special treatment when wearing it. Especially since it's magically created.

I dislike restricting the body armour slot because, frankly, it's the only interesting armour slot.

Well, you're trading armour variety for racial variety. Either way, I'd argue that it's more a problem with those armour slots, rather than with draconians.

This also makes Draconians more viable melee characters

I've had absolutely no problems playing draconians as melee characters. My only Dr win was a melee character.

[DuxOrbis]

Perhaps they should get only 50 extra regen and the current malus to food cost. That means you get diminishing returns. Way more food cost on top of a troll's prohibitively costly food needs does not sound broken, it wouldn't be optimal, and certainly not optimal or as broken as a Troll with a ring of regen or two and/or the spell. From what people tell me Troll's lose steam in late game anyway, given this is Crawl by endgame you become the prime specimen of your species, trolls could have 50 more regen on a body slot and not be overpowered.

The diminishing returns of Dragon armour on Draconians would be to non-matching colors. You'd however get one way to get a bonus if you matched the color, without making all dragon armour totally useless.

You've missed my point. It's not made FOR trolls/dragons, the way orcish armour is made for orcs. It's made OF trolls/dragons. So I don't see any reason they should get any special treatment when wearing it. Especially since it's magically created.

I dislike restricting the body armour slot because, frankly, it's the only interesting armour slot.

Well, you're trading armour variety for racial variety. Either way, I'd argue that it's more a problem with those armour slots, rather than with draconians.

This also makes Draconians more viable melee characters

I've had absolutely no problems playing draconians as melee characters. My only Dr win was a melee character.

Except it ALREADY has special treatment regarding Trolls and Draconians in that they cannot wear them for no good reason.

Demonspawn get free scales, resists and AC (between 3 and 10) but no restrictions to armor, the -1 apt and sometimes Dex or Ev penalties is justification for this? That's practically negligible. The difference is they get them randomly over time. Draconians are more predictable, which isn't necessarily a good thing, but if we use that predictable early AC but cap it lower, you get an interesting choice mid to late game, go for Dex or invest in some Dragon Armor and possibly Str if you are low, we could exchange AC for something else that fits the dragon hybrid theme without making up rules about armor that limits player choice, the choice to bridge that later game AC gap lower scales won't give with new Draconians acting like they used to, ie. less natural AC.

What could that variety be? Low level claws(too close to Demonspawn in my opinion but thematic), or more types of bites ala Yellow Draconians (unique and thematic since their heads truly are dragon-like, if the justification for lack of helmets stands, which I think it should) or more range in breathe types, a weak breathe, medium breathe (the breathe right now) and a costlier (getting up to berzerk costs with exhaustion length increased and such) heavy hitting or higher utility breath.

It seems like there are a whole mess of options here that aren't [give them some AC and take all the armor out].

And the special treatment here would be diminishing returns for trolls to be consistent with diminishing returns for Draconians with mismatched armor color, minus some natural max AC. You get all the variety and none of the overpowering AC problems, PLUS you nerf the penalty-less AC that makes scales such a freebie to casters.

And I'd like to rephrase my comment on melee Dr. You played as a dex dodger, Str AC Draconians would become more viable, like Draconian Knights who's tiles still have body armor, go figure.

I'd rather have the racial variety incorporate the armor variety, if we use natural AC to make up for limited armor slots, all the mid range armors, and give them late game armor EVERY other class can use, and make them interact uniquely with it, we have made the game more interesting, without unbalancing it.

[eeviac]

Dr do not need help in melee. I've won 7 Dr since the armour change and every one of them was a tabber to some extent. GDR is nice but not necessary. You can use statue/dragon form if you really want it.

Felids and octopodes can't wear dragon armour either.

[DuxOrbis]

Dr do not need help in melee. I've won 7 Dr since the armour change and every one of them was a tabber to some extent. GDR is nice but not necessary. You can use statue/dragon form if you really want it.

Felids and octopodes can't wear dragon armour either.

Tabber as in tab attack correct? The armour change isn't the issue for making the STRONGER or more survivable, not at all, it isn't 'help' in melee, it's options I want to see them have, and maybe even less of an easy time without armor late game. +13 AC at XL 27 is nice, but you can have Demonspawn with +10 Iridescent scales and Dragon Armor and a helmet. That doesn't make Draconian's weak, just a weird exception and seemingly a compromise to variety. You don't need +13 AC in scales to be a no armor melee fighter, but why make them heavy casters late game, or fairly low AC no GDR melee fighters? Nerf the scale AC cap and let players pick armor instead, casters would have a harder choice to make.

If you have say 18 AC (example: Draconian at XL 13, +13 AC, +1 gloves, +1 boots, cloak)
Vs.
Any other normal armor species at zero armor skill, 18 AC (Example: +2 dragon armor (34% GDR, this becomes more effective than the 3 AC gap after just 9 damage and increases linearly from there), gloves, boots, cloak)

You get the same amount of enchantment, BUT there is one GIANT caveat to this. YOUR ARMOR SKILL LEVEL. At skill 13 all the base AC from your armors becomes over 50% more effective AC. So you're getting GDR AND the bonus for skill investment in a defensive stat. With fairly weak Draconian Dexterity there is just nothing optimal about them except maybe relatively high AC casters, which is arguable especially late game when the dragon armor takes the bite out of a lot of things with heavy, single hits AND multiple light ones.
Is one pip, apt adjustment, a useful-for-some-of-the-game-sometimes breathe weapon (which is often redundant to a spell, or just not strong enough to be worth while), tail slapping, and some cop out scale AC all we're going to see come from Draconians, with in my opinion a lot of potential for fun and unique flavor? My solution might suck in the end, but this all seems broken to me. This hasn't even touched on fixing the rest of Draconian's lackluster differentiation of colors.

I stand corrected. Felids and octopodes not wearing magical armors could be a problem too, instead of just restricting them wholesale though, we have redundant systems in place to discourage armor use without restricting slots (or worse, essentially eliminating them as we do now), Deformed Body and the Armour Skill aptitude, use them, if it isn't enough, make levels 2 and 3 of Deformed Body mean something, but I think in combination they work just fine for soft restricting armor (especially heavy armor) variety. Make it a choice and not a forced role.

And personally I find the idea of a big cat decked out in gleaming golden scales to be a badass battle beast.
And just because you can win with a Draconian does not make it fun or balanced.

See devwiki for unresolved issues:

https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php? ... raconian&s[]=draconian

Personally fond of DracoOmega's description of the progression of armor, more like it was before the restrictions, which KiloByte considered changing from the get-go.

I also find it funny that Tiamat can wear Gold Dragon armor and gets a dragon skin cloak. It looks like wearing other dragon's skin IS canon in that respect.

And it's nice to see grey draconian's fit into the 'earth-metal' niche more completely than they have been, and with more secondary effects on how they interact with the environment is a nice touch. Time will tell if the other colors get more differentiation to set them apart.

[XuaXua]

That's old Tiamat. Now Tiamat just gets the cloak. The wiki needs to be updated for the newer game version (as usual).

[DuxOrbis]

That's old Tiamat. Now Tiamat just gets the cloak. The wiki needs to be updated for the newer game version (as usual).

I should read my own links! The revision was discussed on the devwiki I posted!

[TwilightPhoenix]

I'm reading your arguments and and all that, but I've totally lost what your point is now. What are we trying to do here? Buff Draconians? Revert them back to having body armor with no auxilllary slots? Be more realisitic? Slice off their vestigial wings? Come up with some weird, complicated synergy/anti-syngery with Draconian color and the color of dragon armor? Allow Felids to create kitty sweaters out of dragon hides?

Seriously, not trolling, I'm lost and no longer can tell what you're trying to accomplish.

[DuxOrbis]

I'm reading your arguments and and all that, but I've totally lost what your point is now. What are we trying to do here? Buff Draconians? Revert them back to having body armor with no auxilllary slots? Be more realisitic? Slice off their vestigial wings? Come up with some weird, complicated synergy/anti-syngery with Draconian color and the color of dragon armor? Allow Felids to create kitty sweaters out of dragon hides?

Seriously, not trolling, I'm lost and no longer can tell what you're trying to accomplish.

More or less! Not buff really, if anything try to keep them about the same, just with a different pacing based on player choice, diversifying into armor should be where the majority of the AC comes from, passive AC is fine for balancing some things, but absurdly high natural AC and no armor starts to make things less diverse, more floor trash, less choice, and that is a bad thing. Figuring out a way to keep the most interesting slot and the balance of the species is a good start, the devs have noted the current system is suboptimal and considered reverting them. We can get creative to help make draconians stand out while still having interesting choices for defense and still be balanced, it's hard but I know it can be done.

Also why dragon-armor wouldn't already HAVE wings or at least places where wings used to be baffles me. If you can't justify giving all dragon armors limited flight, which I can totally agree with about that being a bad idea, I can't see why having wings stick out of what used to have wings be a really big problem.

Ok let me itemize it if that helps.

Possible New System:
-Drop natural scales bonuses to +3 AC(+1 every 4 levels) for a total of +9 natural AC, less as needed, or faster bonuses with a lower cap, depends on how it plays from early-mid-end game.
-Make robes, animal skins, and dragon armor fit as per the old system
-Expanding draconian interactions with dragon armor. Example, match color=tempting bonus(breathe timeout/foodcost halved or damage bonus etc.), mismatch color=nothing or limited malus. Opposing color=significant malus. Imperfect, problems with odd colors, ie. steam opposite of mottled? there is no 'grey' or earth/iron dragon armor for black draconians, or opposite to yellow draconians either.
-Making breath weapons more interesting for more parts of the game. Possible system, finer controls over a bigger power to cost scale. Too many options clutter micromanagement, keep it 2 or 3.
-The previous lack of boots, gloves and bucklers isn't ideal, limiting slots is in my opinion a poor and unintuitive way to balance a species if it isn't directly related to bodily mutations like claws or talons. But with 9 AC, roughly boots, gloves, and a helmet at max enchantment the later game egos are pretty much (save artifacts) the only thing bad about losing them, and you get the AC over 27 levels or so, seems about equivalent to the rate you'd find/enchant maxed secondary armor. I'm open to suggestions for this one, I can't justify the unarmed attack bonus, except that it fits well into the dragon theme, having armor and mutations means choosing attack over defense, or later on, egos.
-leave helmets out still, consider expanding growth mutations like branded bites, low level fangs, short range breaths. Visored helmets will not block beak attacks in 11 from the changelog, something to consider if helmets somehow make it in.
-If this is too generous to them, give them their opposite element as a weakness, slow down their leveling, tone down health etc. Interesting and unique is fine until a species gets under or overpowered.

On Felids and Octopodes:

Is it really that strange that Felids could wear armor only after having read a magical scroll to make it change shape?
Why it would change shape into a one sized fits all dragon armor and only be able to change size and shape to non-dragon humanoids? And if you've ever seen a cat try to fit into something you'd know that it WOULD get into that armor if it fit.
Magical armor has always seemed to be the exception wearable to most if not all species except for the recent, more beastly additions, it was for Draconians in the old version.

Felids 'could' do with late game armor, it beats extra lives which seems really anti-crawl permadeath, I wouldn't suspect an armored war elephant to put on it's own armor, but a felid might just be clever enough for dragon armor which you have to survive to get to anyway. He-Man fans would appreciate battle tigers, disturbing trends under image searches for "cat armor" suggest it is not a new idea. Or they could remain beastly and niche, if not a bit gimmicky. Octopodes and to a lesser extent Felids have a source of AC in rings, but it's not guaranteed, though it has amazingly high potential with 8 ring slots. They don't have any bones though so armor is less realistic, if not armor, robes for them to stick 6 legs out of and 2 for the sleeves perhaps. I really like Octopode Berzerkers, but they rely quite a bit on the RNG. Is the early game trouble worth it for the awesomeness that is Octopodes or should they just be made a bit worse at things for a little extra AC early game? Debatable.

[TwilightPhoenix]

Okay, now I see more what you're getting at. And, frankly, I disagree with it. While selecting body armor is a choice made in the game, it's not a choice made often and it's rarely an interesting choice. Quite frequently, you already know what you're going to want for armor right when you start the game. Going light armor? Use a robe or leather armor and then branch to troll or light dragon. Heavy? Use the heaviest thing available and then upgrade to heavy dragon or CPA when it becomes available. Only things that might make you stop and think for a moment are artifacts, but you very rarely find a useful one.

By giving Draconians body armor back, you're actually removing an interesting choice from the game. It's not one made in gameplay, I'll give that, but it's an important one at the character selection screen. When rolling a character, you ask yourself "Do I want to play a Draconian and get free AC and the other benefits it has at the cost of not having a body armor slot?" You only make it once per character, but it's certainly a more interesting and impacting choice than picking up robes until you find resistance or arch-magi or getting mottled dragon armor yet again.

The matching/mis-matching color thing with dragon armor really wouldn't add much. It sounds good on paper, yes, but think about it. It'd just make dragon armor more of an obvious choice. And nobody would touch the mismatched armors at all, which is a bad thing (for example, starting a FE and then turning into a white draconian is a good thing since it causes you to think about your long-term strategy and opens up new possibilities. A straight penalty on certain types of armor means they'll never be touched, ever). Not to mention that not all the draconians have matching armor types... or matching dragons for that matter (though you mentioned that). The oddly matched types would be pretty spoilery and non-intuitive (it makes sense that fire and ice oppose, but why would sticky flame and acid or death and earth?)

And then there's also the current synergy with Draconian scale mutations and dragon form, which is quite awesome. Nerfing their scales would seriously nerf their dragon form synergy, a syngergy that's cool both in terms of gameplay and flavor.

Breath attacks, no real opinion on those. I think they work pretty well right now, but I haven't played all the colors yet (despite having a draconian win under my belt).

Octopodes and Felids, the above argument really applies to them too. Yes, not being able to wear armor gives a few less choices during gameplay, but allowing it removes the interesting character selection screen choices. Though Felids do need some help since they got overnerfed during their debut in trunk.