Prescriptive backgrounds (was: Spider god)

[Sjohara]

But you sound like you don't have issues with the gameplay, and what you don't like is the flavor of a god who "just" turns you into a superspider, because this is not divine enough.

I think Sjohara's arguments are about gameplay too. I am also a bit bothered by the idea of a god that overwrite 70% of what defines your species.

I know overly prescriptive backgrounds, species, or gods are generally frowned upon by the dev team, but honestly it doesn't usually bother me that much as long as the relevant playstyle is unique and interesting*, which it probably would be in this case.

It's just that if the bulk of the powers are going to be similar to racial benefits and your species is largely overwritten it seems like it would be more elegant to just go with a species to begin with, if possible. There's also the oddball option of making Spiders a starting species but forcing them to start as worshipers of the spider god regardless of background (I remember there was consideration given to making all Hill Orc backgrounds start as worshipers of Beogh, but that's obviously no longer on the table after the loss of Mountain Dwarves). I wouldn't be surprised if there's some established reason why that would never be accepted, but honestly Ixhuachatetl's playstyle is narrow enough that anyone who wants to take advantage of it is probably going to already have it in mind at character creation anyway, and then people will just be picking whatever handful of species min/max out to be the best spiders due to keeping certain benefits but negating certain drawbacks. Naga, Octopodes, and Felids in particular have their downsides almost 100% negated while keeping many or all of their benefits. I mean, Octopodes getting quadruple equipment slots compared to anyone else instead of struggling to break even? Felids getting a ton of extra lives while losing no additional equipment slots and actually upgrading to a stronger body? It's a balancing nightmare.

*Exception: I hate Deep Dwarves because they have literally one viable class/god combination. Yeah, I'm sure there's a list somewhere that shows every possible combination being ascended at least once, but really, Necromancer of Makhleb compensates for their crippling weakness so overwhelmingly better than anything else that you'd have to be a lunatic not to pick it. I've tried DDHe a few times, but my piety never holds out. Spiders are narrow in their capabilities, but they would benefit from a variety of caster backgrounds, which in my opinion makes then no worse than Trolls (who have basically one worthwhile skill build but can benefit from a variety of gods).

[cerebovssquire]

DDEE > DDNe and if you had problems with DDHe you were doing something wrong (perhaps not raising enough invo, or raising exclusively invo for too long? sounds like the former). DDBe is also extremely good. DD*Makhleb with no spells (initially, at least) and heavy armour is also good, in fact it is so good that I manage to get a 17-rune win with it as my first win despite being an extremely terrible player back then. DDHu with a crossbow takes little damage and works with Trog or Makhleb just fine. Jiyva is a more exotic choice that can work with Vampiric Draining, but here we are going into the realm of gods that kind of work with DD and away from the actually crazily overpowered DD combinations.

[Sjohara]

I admittedly forgot that Trog had a heal just now; I'm not sure if I ever tried that one. But with Elyvilon I was simply taking damage in fights too consistently for any form of healing to keep up in the long term. Marginally increased efficiency on my heals beyond whatever I was already shooting for couldn't have possibly been enough. I don't believe I ever reached the Lair. And if Elyvilon wasn't sustainable I had low expectations for Makhleb not backed up by Vampiric Draining. Eventually I'm going to start regularly running into spellcasters other nasty things who can breach my damage mitigation from range pretty easily, and then what? I can't empty a wand every couple of battles and Makhleb does nothing for burst damage.

[cerebovssquire]

Makhleb heals get bigger and bigger as monster damage increases. Your piety and monster HD get bigger which affects the amount of healing. Makhleb without Vampiric Draining is completely fine. In regards to Elyvilon, what armour were you using? And if you weren't using heavy armour, had you trained Dodging? DDHe is very easy, were you pacifying the majority of monsters (which gets you a lot of piety!). If you weren'r in Lair yet it is a major milestone for He: basically 8 levels of free exp. He has a very easy time getting to Lair, and assuming that you don't get careless it has practically won afterwards. Especially if you have a wand of healing which is strong enough alone to get you there.
Your intrinsic damage mitigation is simply some extra AC that effects more stuff than AC. Just wear some plate, crystal plate or GDA and your spellless DD will have a lot of damage mitigation, enough to simply run up to dudes who damaged you, kill them and get the HP they took off you back. Anyway, do you plan on Vampiric Draining deep elf annihilators or what? Killing them asap will probably result in more HP than Vampiric Draining them to death.
This character is easy even without a vampiric weapon, and close to trivial with one.

[crate]

If you are intimately familiar with how Elyvilon works then DDHe is extremely easy. If you are not familiar with how Ely works then you will probably be very frustrated.

If you want to see how easy DD of Ely is then I suggest first you go play a few games with a different race of Ely (hill orcs are a good choice for learning because they are even easier, or humans are good for being similar to most other races). Then go try DD of Ely.

The main idea with DDHe is that you don't actually fight anything because fighting will cost you more piety (fighting costs piety since you gain 0 for kills and lose piety for healing yourself) than just pacifying everything. You pacify as much as possible because that actually costs negative piety (0 for lesser healing, then you gain from pacification); you kill things only to eat.

DD of Ely can fight things where you would take zero damage just fine, so if for instance you decide to become a DDEE of Elyvilon you can kill many things with earth conjurations without taking any damage at all.

Makhleb healing is similarly quite strong because most things you fight will not hurt you (or at least will be sizably outhealed by Makhleb); the things that do hurt you more than Makhleb heals are made up for by potions of heal wounds or killing things that don't hurt more than you heal. (Again something like DDEE is good because you can kill many things with earth conjurations without taking damage.)

That said DD is indeed pretty limited in reasonable god choices, yes.

[dpeg]

Re: DD. I don't mind if they're quite easy with some gods. It's a bit annoying that saying "I won a deep dwarf" does not indicate at all how hard the game was, but that cannot be helped. That's also why I am not worried if spider god wins would vary considerably in challenge, depending on the species you start out with.

Re: spider species. As I see it, the whole point is that a spider species would not be interesting. Furthermore, there are Felids already, with a similarly narrow build -- no need to double on that.

[dpeg]

minmay: There are some differences:
1. God choice comes later and is "more optional" than that of species. As a minor god, permanent spider form occupies much less "space" than as a species. We expect a lof of diversity from the species we offer (and not all live up to that), and same for the temple gods, but a minor god can afford to sit in a smaller niche.
2. You can also see it the other way around: it *would* be interesting (for me) to play an all-out stabbing spider species, but we wouldn't want such a thing on our species list because it doesn't offer much else. Turning the horse before the cart, the spider god would deliver spider species with some twists and bells for all-out stabbing.

[njvack]

Note: seems a mod splitting a topic doesn't trip the ninja-detector like posting does. Sorry for the confusion.

[Sjohara]

If you are intimately familiar with how Elyvilon works then DDHe is extremely easy. If you are not familiar with how Ely works then you will probably be very frustrated.

If you want to see how easy DD of Ely is then I suggest first you go play a few games with a different race of Ely (hill orcs are a good choice for learning because they are even easier, or humans are good for being similar to most other races). Then go try DD of Ely.

The main idea with DDHe is that you don't actually fight anything because fighting will cost you more piety (fighting costs piety since you gain 0 for kills and lose piety for healing yourself) than just pacifying everything. You pacify as much as possible because that actually costs negative piety (0 for lesser healing, then you gain from pacification); you kill things only to eat.

My experience was that, since the success rate of Lesser Heal goes down the stronger the monster is (or if it's either too smart or too stupid; I forget which was worse off the top of my head), it wasn't always safe to use. If I spend more turns trying to pacify than I would bashing the target's head in, then I take extra hits. If I fail outright to pacify it and am forced to give up, then I've taken a dozen rounds of combat and I'm no closer to being rid of the threat. If I user a stronger healing spell to increase my odds of success against a tough foe, then I waste piety I could spend healing. The end result is that I pacified stuff whenever it felt safe, but sometimes either didn't attempt it or felt desperate enough to use a stronger heal for the job. If it really is feasible to lesser heal practically everything into submission then I may have underestimated the spell.

minmay: There are some differences:
1. God choice comes later and is "more optional" than that of species. As a minor god, permanent spider form occupies much less "space" than as a species. We expect a lof of diversity from the species we offer (and not all live up to that), and same for the temple gods, but a minor god can afford to sit in a smaller niche.

I'm not sure if I really understand this. If I decide at the start of a run that I want to shoot for the spider god, then obviously I'm not going to pick a race with a garbage stealth aptitude and start training in axes and heavy armor. I'm going to restrict my species to those who will transition well into being a spider and only train skills and spells which I expect will supplement the spider playstyle. Apart from making temporary use from a nice magical robe or whatever, isn't my run equally restrictive in my realistic options regardless of whether I find the altar on floor 1 or floor 12? And on the flip side, if I don't do all of that, then the odds of randomly deciding to pray at this spider altar I stumbled upon not ruining my character are very low, so it stands to reason that I'm expected to make all my other choices with the god in mind. Given that, in what sense is the god taking up less "design space" than a hypothetical new species, except for the literal sense of saving on menu screen real estate?

[rchandra]

minmay: There are some differences:
1. God choice comes later and is "more optional" than that of species. As a minor god, permanent spider form occupies much less "space" than as a species. We expect a lof of diversity from the species we offer (and not all live up to that), and same for the temple gods, but a minor god can afford to sit in a smaller niche.

I'm not sure if I really understand this. If I decide at the start of a run that I want to shoot for the spider god, then obviously I'm not going to pick a race with a garbage stealth aptitude and start training in axes and heavy armor. I'm going to restrict my species to those who will transition well into being a spider and only train skills and spells which I expect will supplement the spider playstyle. Apart from making temporary use from a nice magical robe or whatever, isn't my run equally restrictive in my realistic options regardless of whether I find the altar on floor 1 or floor 12? And on the flip side, if I don't do all of that, then the odds of randomly deciding to pray at this spider altar I stumbled upon not ruining my character are very low, so it stands to reason that I'm expected to make all my other choices with the god in mind. Given that, in what sense is the god taking up less "design space" than a hypothetical new species, except for the literal sense of saving on menu screen real estate?

Usually, at the start of the game, I have a god in mind. My most common alternate god choices are when:
a) I find the altar to a reasonable other god pre-temple (for example, Trog/Okawaru/Makhleb for MiFi, Sif/Vehumet for DE elementalist, Kikubaaqudgha/Ashenzari on SpEn, etc.)
b) I find an altar to Jiyva and I do not currently have a god who will kill me.
c) the Temple is corrupted
d) The god I want is not in the temple this time (the same as (a), really)

So these are reasons I might worship the spider god when I wouldn't have started the game as a spider. They are not so rare as to be edge cases.

[King_jelly]

Copy/pasted from the Spider God thread

Basically this god offers perma spider form with various boosts and abilities, blocks almost all equipment, only keeps a few species-specific intrinsics, and offers only two play styles (which is really just one since some people basically do both) stealth/stabbing and spellcasting - and this is supposed to be a good idea because....?

Dont get me wrong, I'm really enjoying some of these ideas, but from my understanding gods are meant to support many types of characters/builds, not force a very narrow way of playing upon the player.

I think some things should be changed/reconsidered.

I think it's a terrible idea to add such a narrow god. A hybrid spider/(insert player species here) form would be much better and wouldn't almost negate player species, only ENHANCE IT. The only reason everyone is being so narrow is because they added a subplot to this god about hating everything except spiders....

Let me put it this way: does jiyva force jelly form onto a player? I mean.... it is the jelly god after all! NO! Instead you get mutations that mimic what it would be like to play as a jelly.