Formicids (Was: Dwants)


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Abyss Ambulator

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Post Friday, 15th November 2013, 11:20

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

I just propose that -rPois be removed from this race. It ins't really fair that one shot from from a poisoned dart can get you killed. At least races with -rFire and -rCold aren;t subject to the DOT tick.

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Post Friday, 15th November 2013, 11:36

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

The main thing is :
-rFire and -rCold are nearlyirrelevant, compared to -rPois :
Bonus damage taken from -rFire or -rCold : 50%. For -rPois, you take twice the damage from the attacks, The poison status duration get doubled (by having twice the poison level), and the poison ticks damage is increased by a mean of 75% if you get hit 3 times or more (and I won't talk about the "red" poison status (only needing to get hit 5 times, clearly happening when you meet 2 adders at the same time), simply killing any formicid under level 5 I saw without a potion of curing.
I don't think -rPois need to be removed from Formicids, but a change would be welcome :D

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Post Friday, 15th November 2013, 12:25

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

rP- is harsh but I think it's best to keep playing. A handicap like this needs time for adaptation, not an outcry for removal after every poison death of a formicid.

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Post Friday, 15th November 2013, 12:35

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

dpeg wrote:not an outcry for removal after every poison death of a formicid.
There would be much more than 5 pages in this thread, but I get your point :D

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Post Friday, 15th November 2013, 14:35

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

dpeg wrote:rP- is harsh but I think it's best to keep playing. A handicap like this needs time for adaptation, not an outcry for removal after every poison death of a formicid.


Actually I'm not complaining so much about the death of a Fo due to poison - unfair deaths like the one I reported can be solved probably just adding some healing pots from the start of small adjustment like that.

I'm addressing the big hassle is having rpois- : pratically every poisonous enemy means you have to smash 5 for a minute, even if he's totally harmless. Anyway, Galehar has opened a topic more general on the argument, so I'd eventual comment more there.
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Post Friday, 15th November 2013, 15:50

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

nago wrote:
dpeg wrote:rP- is harsh but I think it's best to keep playing. A handicap like this needs time for adaptation, not an outcry for removal after every poison death of a formicid.


Actually I'm not complaining so much about the death of a Fo due to poison - unfair deaths like the one I reported can be solved probably just adding some healing pots from the start of small adjustment like that.

I'm addressing the big hassle is having rpois- : pratically every poisonous enemy means you have to smash 5 for a minute, even if he's totally harmless. Anyway, Galehar has opened a topic more general on the argument, so I'd eventual comment more there.

You don't think that giving them one of the 3 most important potions in the game to start with is a bit much? If you really are worried start with a FoHe and get it that way.

Abyss Ambulator

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Post Friday, 15th November 2013, 15:53

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

dck wrote:Hey, has wand acq been changed for Fo so that they don't get sticks of tele and haste?


Since mummies apparently can get staff of energy, I assume the *usable* criteria is taken literally. After all my mummy fire elementalist can wield the staff of energy and bash things with it.

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Post Friday, 15th November 2013, 15:56

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

Give everyone a potion of beneficial mutation to start too while we're at it. Everyone loves fun random good mutations.

dck

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Post Friday, 15th November 2013, 15:59

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

Well you can also channel energy with it if you're into that kind of stuff.
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Post Friday, 15th November 2013, 18:03

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

I've spitted the god discussion to the advice forum

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=9858
<+Grunt> You dereference an invalid pointer! Ouch! That really hurt! The game dies...

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Post Friday, 15th November 2013, 21:52

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

I agree with dpeg. Removing rPois- from formicids helps with Fo not being so annoying to play, but doesn't solve the root cause of poison in general being tedious.

Also can we please change stasis to -Tele? I can't think of any reason Ants can't be hasted, slowed, paralyzed, berserked, etc. I can buy no tele/blink, and replacing it with dig/shaft is interesting, but not having any last minute escape mechanism (read: gonna die real soon if I can't get out of melee/LoS) is super brutal. Especially with -20% hp. And rPois-.

dck

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Post Friday, 15th November 2013, 22:01

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

I believe the point of the race is to play a stasis challenge and they're handed some pretty nice tools (good apts, fast leveling, ability to wield gscs, free digging) to deal with it to some degree. I find them to be better than mummies although they are the second weakest race after them.
So I don't think removing stasis should be done at all.

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Post Friday, 15th November 2013, 22:35

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

You missed the point. The question isn't whether Fo were designed as a stasis challenge. The question is whether stasis is more interesting/fun than -Tele. I don't think it is... Much like perma-slow, stasis seems better suited as a god conduct than a species conduct.

The only way stasis makes sense to me gameplay-wise is if Fo were the same speed as felids. Obviously you would have to then tweak apts for balance, but this seems more reasonable than the way they're currently built. But -Tele seems like a much more favorable swap.

dck

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Post Friday, 15th November 2013, 22:52

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

My point was that they were designed to be the stasis challenge instead of the -tele challenge and that I myself find stasis to be more interesting than -tele.
If you remove the stasis or give them faster than normal movement then everything else that lets dwants tackle things in interesting ways suffers a lot or is removed and then you're left with worse felids that can wear things, can't teleport and have no extra lives.

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Post Friday, 15th November 2013, 23:25

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

And having played several, they aren't even terribly weak (really the only thing that keeps them from being a stronger race is the -HP attribute). Stasis has a number of interesting benefits and drawbacks, and it's the most interesting part of the race. -Tele would be just that much less interesting.
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dck

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Post Friday, 15th November 2013, 23:40

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

Yeah no, being unable to access the status effect that lets you do everything 33% better is a really really bad thing.

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duvessa

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Post Friday, 15th November 2013, 23:48

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

dck wrote:If you remove the stasis or give them faster than normal movement then everything else that lets dwants tackle things in interesting ways suffers a lot or is removed...

Can you explain that a little more? I'm not following you there. Digging seems to be their only abnormal tool for tackling things in interesting ways (shafting is pretty bad in "escape now" situations since you have to sit there getting pounded for 2 turns, unlike tele which at least lets you keep walking away). Not sure how allowing swift/haste/berserk cause digging to suffer or be removed as a useful tactic…

Siegurt wrote:Stasis has a number of interesting benefits and drawbacks, and it's the most interesting part of the race.

Stasis has no real benefits other than paralysis prevention (which really you should be trying your hardest to prevent in any game anyways), and the only interesting drawback in my opinion is the -Tele.

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Post Friday, 15th November 2013, 23:53

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

WalkerBoh: In my experience, the larger conduct (or handicap) is often the more interesting one. If you disallow teleportation but do allow blinking, then you shoehorn the species into the blinking spells -- which is not very special. Since Stasis is a well-defined thing in Crawl, slapping it onto a species and balancing it with something else seems like a good idea to try. And regarding slower movement speed: there are nagas, and they're powerful enough.

Bottom line: To me, stasis is certainly more fun, and also more interesting, than just no-tele.

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Post Saturday, 16th November 2013, 04:58

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

Sorry, when I say -Tele I was of the understanding that also means no blinking. Maybe that wasn't clear. I specifically only object to not being able to haste/zerk/swift.

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Post Saturday, 16th November 2013, 06:24

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

WalkerBoh wrote:Sorry, when I say -Tele I was of the understanding that also means no blinking. Maybe that wasn't clear. I specifically only object to not being able to haste/zerk/swift.


It does mean no blinking.
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Barkeep

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Post Saturday, 16th November 2013, 13:24

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

So if we're talking about ways to buff Fo or provide some poison relief, here's my suggestion, with a little help from this BBC story. Insects often have weird, stinky defense mechanisms, and I think Fo deserve some of that grossness.

In addition to dig and shaft, give Fo the ability to make a temporary Tomb (like the card) from their own vomit. It would be very short-lasting (complete tomb very rare, squares going away within a few turns), but would push enemies away and, more helpfully, act as a cure poison spell. But it comes with berserk-like drawbacks, making you hungry and exhausted.

If entombment is too powerful, you could have them squirt blood (blinding nearby enemies) or simply expel the poison. But something that provides limited control while simultaneously ridding poison at a high hunger cost may not be the worst thing. If it's not powerful enough, make the vomit walls act as Slime walls to non-rCorr enemies.

Admittedly, this is a silly idea; I don't know if Fo need a buff, and the poison problems are more widespread. But hey, figured I'd add it to the pile.

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Post Saturday, 23rd November 2013, 19:37

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

pubby wrote:
I ran into a nasty bug though: When going with Oka and getting finesse online I get constantly the message "you cannot use finesse because of your stasis". I get this message multiple times per turn so it is making this character unplayable. I've seen others play Okawaru games so this is probably already known so I didn't open a ticket in Mantis. Inform me, if this isn't the case, please. Version crawl_tiles-0.14-a0-788-g14b720c.

This _might_ have been fixed. If you still have the save, could you update to latest trunk and see if the message still gets spammed?

I downloaded a new version today, the bug is no more.

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Post Sunday, 24th November 2013, 03:29

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

My experience with formicids:
- Stasis is really, really bad. -Tele is one thing; Maxwell's is actually good for many characters. But no haste on top of that? You're about 33% weaker than any other race in all the most important mid/late-game scenarios, and unlike with Chei you can't teleport or blink to escape those scenarios. I'm tempted to say this species is actually worse than mummy by the time you get to vaults or so, and mummies are already staggeringly bad for the entire game compared to every other race. That said, it's a more interesting feature than anything on LO or Dj or whatnot.
- You have to be pretty desperate to want to shaft yourself unless you're exploring branches backwards (which is a huge penalty in itself) and it doesn't even work on or near branch ends. Lots of people here are overestimating this ability in my opinion.
- rPois- is annoying and almost completely uninteresting but that is because poison is annoying and almost completely uninteresting.
- The whole "wield 2-handed weapons in one hand" gimmick is silly and pointless, there's a reason it wasn't given to ogres back when it first came up. It removes most of the variety from weapon selection and makes some weapon categories totally unappealing.

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Post Sunday, 24th November 2013, 06:09

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

This doesn't happen very often, but I agree with most of duvessa's criticisms above. In my opinion changing stasis to -Tele and fixing poison in general solves 90% of the issues.

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Post Sunday, 24th November 2013, 06:51

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

Changing stasis to -tele defeats the whole point of their special conduct and makes them a lot more normal and boring. -tele does almost nothing. If they're judged to be too weak give them hp or apts. They certainly are extremely bad but personally I don't know if they should be changed yet.

My main complaint is that shafting doesn't work in branch ends and it means they can't escape at all without god abilities.

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Post Sunday, 24th November 2013, 09:54

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

Wahaha wrote:My main complaint is that shafting doesn't work in branch ends and it means they can't escape at all without god abilities.

Except they can just walk away.

I think Formicids players should know they have to think _before_ they engage.

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Post Sunday, 24th November 2013, 10:15

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

I used shafting to escape from Wiglaf (he has haste). I think it might be most useful in situations like that; you see an enemy you know you can't take on, but can't run away. If you do it before getting beaten up, your chances of surviving the destination are good.
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Post Sunday, 24th November 2013, 14:49

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

I'm curious about how they would do if they started off with +5 AC and had a -1 HP aptitude.
The +1 AC +5 Hp bonus they have right now is laughable, and the "twohander with a shield" feature doesn't quite balance out their tendency to die horribly (and early) to anything that poisons you combined with stasis.

All while they are in the same HP category as gargoyles - and we all know what's up with gargoyles. (Spoiler: huge ac for low hp; a far better and more reliable trade than whatever dwants have)
And no, my point isn't "omfg Fo is weaker than Gr wtf!!!" - it's just that Fo provides a terrible experience for anyone daring to pick it. Unless they're into shafting themselves until they meet a water moccasin and die.
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!lg * won !DD-- min=turns -log
<Sequell> 20749. Bloax, XL24 VSTm, T:13320: http://crawl.lantea.net/crawl/morgue/Bloax/morgue-Bloax-20140907-000920.txt

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Post Sunday, 24th November 2013, 15:08

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

MDvedh wrote:I think Formicids players should know they have to think _before_ they engage.

Moreso when they have a +2 to stealth, by the way :D

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Post Sunday, 24th November 2013, 15:26

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

Bloax wrote:And no, my point isn't "omfg Fo is weaker than Gr wtf!!!"
That seems to be exactly your point.
- it's just that Fo provides a terrible experience for anyone daring to pick it. Unless they're into shafting themselves until they meet a water moccasin and die.
Well, I had a great experience with all the Fo I played.

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Post Sunday, 24th November 2013, 16:55

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

MDvedh wrote:
Wahaha wrote:My main complaint is that shafting doesn't work in branch ends and it means they can't escape at all without god abilities.

Except they can just walk away.

I think Formicids players should know they have to think _before_ they engage.


Wow you opened my eyes. That totally justifies them being able to ONLY walk away at normal speed against anything they might encounter in a branch end such as Zot 5. They should simply think _before_ getting noticed by the orb of fire and ancient lich in the middle of the orb vault. Everything will be fine as long as they mentally prepare for the fight. It's not like they could possibly need any fucking escape of any kind other than walking away at normal speed. Ok maybe Borg's Revivification, now level 8, can count as an "escape".
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Post Sunday, 24th November 2013, 16:57

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

dpeg wrote:Well, I had a great experience with all the Fo I played.

And I've had a bad time with the 39 I've splatted, which is where I base my opinion from.
dpeg wrote:That seems to be exactly your point.

Gr is a good comparision, since they too are in the -2 Hp category - except they are intentionally fragile because they are so indestructible. Formicids have none of that, and they also have stasis and rPois- slapped into the mix.
Sure, they can wield twohanders with shields - but how often do you get to that point? And why are they so fragile?
Tengu have good aptitudes and can fly away from most monsters, gargoyles are indestructible, deep elves have insane aptitudes and a huge mp pool, and formicids have non-instantaneous shafting for their only escape mechanism.

I'm just interested in how they would perform if their Hp aptitude wasn't atrocious and they had some AC to have an easier time on the first floors of the dungeon, because they sure don't have as much coming for them as the competition.
or are they intentionally the new challenge race and so it's cool that they are terrible compared to the other human-size races that have as little hp as them

I mean christ, they're the only race other than Og/Tr that can throw large rocks and wield giant clubs. So let's balance that out by having them have stasis, a -5 Hp aptitude difference and rPois- for extra flavour.
Their starting AC is lower than the one Tr have, and Tr get an amazing weapon and a passive ring of regeneration from D:1.
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!lg * won !DD-- min=turns -log
<Sequell> 20749. Bloax, XL24 VSTm, T:13320: http://crawl.lantea.net/crawl/morgue/Bloax/morgue-Bloax-20140907-000920.txt

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Post Sunday, 24th November 2013, 17:04

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

dpeg wrote:
- it's just that Fo provides a terrible experience for anyone daring to pick it. Unless they're into shafting themselves until they meet a water moccasin and die.
Well, I had a great experience with all the Fo I played.

Same here.
Especialy ywith my formicid of Chei, who didn't get to walk away from monsters who wanted to fight me...
Formicids is the funniest race.

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Post Sunday, 24th November 2013, 18:19

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

Bloax wrote:And I've had a bad time with the 39 I've splatted, which is where I base my opinion from.

I have had lots of fun with both Troll and Formicid.

Troll: "This race is ridiculously strong, so let's see what kind of dumb shit I can get away with doing."
Formicid: "This race's conduct is dangerous, so let's try to use available tools and good play to work around it."

Species/background choice is Crawl's difficulty setting, it would be less of a game if all the choices fell into either the former or the latter category.

Not all races should resemble Trolls, it's fine if some of them are closer to Mummies.

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Post Sunday, 24th November 2013, 18:48

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

is this your first time talking to bloax or something

Anyway, if stasis goes, I agree with Wahaha that leaving -tele on would be pretty pointless. I mean, I already mentioned the unrandart that does exactly that, no need to add a species with it too.
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Post Sunday, 24th November 2013, 19:13

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

In my eyes, Fo are actually much easier than mummies. They just have the steepest learning curve in the game.

Regarding poison: I'd like to give them their curing potions back to fix their poison weakness, but I don't know if the devs will let me.
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Post Sunday, 24th November 2013, 19:42

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

Bloax wrote:Gr is a good comparision, since they too are in the -2 Hp category - except they are intentionally fragile because they are so indestructible. Formicids have none of that, and they also have stasis and rPois- slapped into the mix.
Sure, they can wield twohanders with shields - but how often do you get to that point? And why are they so fragile?
Tengu have good aptitudes and can fly away from most monsters, gargoyles are indestructible, deep elves have insane aptitudes and a huge mp pool, and formicids have non-instantaneous shafting for their only escape mechanism.


Gr is hardly a good comparison just because both have -20% HP. There are other races that have that too.
The comparison makes no sence since Gr is an super easy race where as Fo is clearly a challenge race.

Overcomparing different races is pointless in general, since the races are supposed to be different. Of course some will be easier and stronger than other.

I think the stasis thing is the very core of this race. It makes them stand out from other races. True it makes some things more difficult but it does help on some occasions too. It's fun to walk over a teleport trap and start throwing large rocks at monsters trying to follow you, or to laugh at some early unique desperately trying to zap you with paralyze wand....

Formalids really an interesting race, they require totally different approach on some things. Maybe they will teach some players that living and winning without haste is possible after all...
I personally hope that they are not changed much from what they are currently.
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Post Sunday, 24th November 2013, 20:17

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

For whose kids?
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Post Sunday, 24th November 2013, 20:47

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

duvessa wrote:Anyway, if stasis goes, I agree with Wahaha that leaving -tele on would be pretty pointless. I mean, I already mentioned the unrandart that does exactly that, no need to add a species with it too.

And if you want to have stasis, there happens to be a very common amulet that provides just that.

I assume the main reason people (dck, duvessa, Wahaha) are against -Tele over stasis is because Haste exists as a spell? If so, would giving them a terrible Charms apt be enough to discourage that (-3 or -4)? Otherwise, I really don't see why allowing them to use speed pots, berserk, and swiftness are so bad that they ruin the point of formicids. I think there are many situations made more interesting by having -Tele, dig, and shaft that are not ruined by allowing speed/berserk/swiftness.

If I'm missing something obvious, which is entirely possible, can someone explain it for me so I can stop embarrassing myself by championing this?

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Post Sunday, 24th November 2013, 20:52

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

WalkerBoh wrote:
duvessa wrote:Anyway, if stasis goes, I agree with Wahaha that leaving -tele on would be pretty pointless. I mean, I already mentioned the unrandart that does exactly that, no need to add a species with it too.

And if you want to have stasis, there happens to be a very common amulet that provides just that.

I assume the main reason people (dck, duvessa, Wahaha) are against -Tele over stasis is because Haste exists as a spell? If so, would giving them a terrible Charms apt be enough to discourage that (-3 or -4)? Otherwise, I really don't see why allowing them to use speed pots, berserk, and swiftness are so bad that they ruin the point of formicids. I think there are many situations made more interesting by having -Tele, dig, and shaft that are not ruined by allowing speed/berserk/swiftness.

If I'm missing something obvious, which is entirely possible, can someone explain it for me so I can stop embarrassing myself by championing this?


It really doesn't matter if you have -3 apt when swiftness exists. I also try to get haste on every character remotely capable of doing so and -3 apt does not make formicids unable to get 10-12 charms. Also brilliance and wizardry exist. In the end you get something swinging a giant spiked club crazily fast AND having normal armour and ev.

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Post Sunday, 24th November 2013, 21:03

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

WalkerBoh wrote:
duvessa wrote:Anyway, if stasis goes, I agree with Wahaha that leaving -tele on would be pretty pointless. I mean, I already mentioned the unrandart that does exactly that, no need to add a species with it too.
I assume the main reason people (dck, duvessa, Wahaha) are against -Tele over stasis is because Haste exists as a spell?
No and I'm not sure how you even got that impression (also, Mi and Tr have -4 charms and get haste all the time). It's about having a penalty that's actually interesting and unique. I don't actually particularly like stasis as a penalty (you may recall I want Chei to allow haste) but having just -Tele would be worse than either having stasis or having nothing, imo.*

*and in either case, I don't think the race is interesting or unique enough to be a good thing to add to crawl, but I figured that was already implied.

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Post Sunday, 24th November 2013, 21:08

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

@onton: My point was just that you can make the cost high enough for formicids to get infinite haste going that you can make it undesirable (or maybe just not optimal) to do so, just like with trolls or minotaurs. Maybe it's too easy to get haste going no matter the cost, and in that case there is something wrong with haste, not the concept. (I know there are already a lot of problems with haste).

@duvessa: Sure, that makes sense. But the part I'm interested in (and don't understand) is why -Tele is less interesting than stasis or nothing. Do you have any examples of situations where -Tele is less interesting than stasis? I just don't see what stasis really adds in terms of handling dangerous/interesting situations.*

*Edit: Assuming you don't have access to haste (the spell), that is.

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Post Sunday, 24th November 2013, 21:13

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

While infinite Haste is good, sure, in normal game you can almost always get by with limited sources (potions and especially wand). So having even -5 Charms apt won't actually be interesting.

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Post Sunday, 24th November 2013, 21:13

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

It's already been mentioned countless times in this thread, and in a great deal of other threads: haste exists. Killing things and running away are both enormously easier with haste. Blocking berserk, slow, and paralysis also has some (much smaller) implications. If you do not consider this interesting then I am thoroughly confused as to why you think -Tele is interesting.
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Post Sunday, 24th November 2013, 21:22

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

duvessa wrote:
WalkerBoh wrote:I assume the main reason people (dck, duvessa, Wahaha) are against -Tele over stasis is because Haste exists as a spell?
No and I'm not sure how you even got that impression


duvessa wrote:It's already been mentioned countless times in this thread, and in a great deal of other threads: haste exists. [...] If you do not consider this interesting then I am thoroughly confused as to why you think -Tele is interesting.


What?
<+Grunt> You dereference an invalid pointer! Ouch! That really hurt! The game dies...

For this message the author galehar has received thanks:
WalkerBoh

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Post Sunday, 24th November 2013, 21:34

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

duvessa wrote:It's already been mentioned countless times in this thread, and in a great deal of other threads: haste exists. Killing things and running away are both enormously easier with haste. Blocking berserk, slow, and paralysis also has some (much smaller) implications. If you do not consider this interesting then I am thoroughly confused as to why you think -Tele is interesting.

Seems to me that the problem is more that haste is imbalanced and too widely available, not that stasis is more interesting than -Tele. Also I'm as confused as galehar that the problem is not that haste exists, but rather that haste exists.

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Post Sunday, 24th November 2013, 21:41

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

What makes them interesting for me is that they can't run away easily. If they had access to haste, even if only in potion/wand form, they would be able to run away easily. Not even talking about swiftness here. Therefore they wouldn't be interesting anymore. I don't particularly care about whether they can or can't use haste, what matters is that haste would let them escape and I do care about that.

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Post Sunday, 24th November 2013, 21:46

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

There's a difference between Haste as effect (well the actual status effect is called "Fast"), which you can get from spell and items (one of which, potion, is common enough) and Haste as spell you need to find a book with, memorize and cast with the help of your Charms skill.

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Post Sunday, 24th November 2013, 21:57

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

Wahaha wrote:What makes them interesting for me is that they can't run away easily. If they had access to haste, even if only in potion/wand form, they would be able to run away easily. Not even talking about swiftness here. Therefore they wouldn't be interesting anymore. I don't particularly care about whether they can or can't use haste, what matters is that haste would let them escape and I do care about that.

And to me, not being able to run away easily just means you run into a lot of situations that you have no means of handling. Being unfairly killed a lot isn't particularly interesting to me. I do agree that being able to run away from every dangerous thing is not fun, and maybe haste is too plentiful right now in consumable form. But the situations where you run into something that is faster and stronger than you (which happens rather often, especially when you have rPois- and -2 hp apt) are pretty much just going to end up with you dead. Formicids need some way of being able to handle those situations, and right now they do not have one.

Chei makes up for the "I can't run from things stronger than me" problem by allowing translocations and giving you strong escape/AoE damage abilities. Formicids make up for it by… being able to use a big weapon and shield? Have antennae? Dig and shaft just do not cut it in a lot of situations.

Maybe there is a better solution, but to me changing stasis to -Tele is at least the simplest.

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Post Sunday, 24th November 2013, 22:08

Re: Formicids (Was: Dwants)

Formicids need some way of being able to handle those situations, and right now they do not have one.

They have shafting. Which is something you don't want to use but it's still there for when you have to. That's why not being able to shaft in branch ends is so bad and does make it completely unfair. They also have consumables and items that you wouldn't use as much of with other races.

Also again, if they're judged too weak for a race with these restrictions, it's the hp and apts that need to be improved, instead of removing the one thing that makes them different from other races.
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