Remove the haste spell

[Amnesiac]

It's 50% now, but prior to 0.8 it was 100%. Knocking it from doubling your DPS down to 1.25-ing it probably would've been too abrupt a change.

Maybe, but this doesn't change the fact, that a buff that makes you 50% faster, meaning that you can deal 50% more damage per turn, is too much. You could as well make all the characters 50% faster from the beginning, because they will be hasted in tough battles anyway, while other popcorn exp-bags aren't a threat anyway. This will also balance the difference between characters who have found a book with haste and who have not.

[Sandman25]

Alternatively make haste special so that it is activated instantly (no time taken) but is active only limited (and low: 2-3) number of turns no matter spell power.

[1010011010]

Alternatively make haste special so that it is activated instantly (no time taken) but is active only limited (and low: 2-3) number of turns no matter spell power.

Why not have haste drain mp when in use, instead of having to recast it repeatedly.

[Sandman25]

Alternatively make haste special so that it is activated instantly (no time taken) but is active only limited (and low: 2-3) number of turns no matter spell power.

Why not have haste drain mp when in use, instead of having to recast it repeatedly.

I don't know. I took the idea from Tome4 where it is instant and always has duration 5 turns with some skill dependent increase in speed (up to about 50%), but it has cooldown period 55 turns and it means the spell cannot be cast more often than once in 55 turns. Crawl does not have cooldown periods so I just suggested to decrease duration.

[Igxfl]

Could we just bump Haste down to +25% speed instead of +50%?

[Amnesiac]

Could we just bump Haste down to +25% speed instead of +50%?

Like I said in another topic, making it give 25%(or less) would be much more reasonable. Why 50%? It's obvious that it's too much. It should've been nerfed years ago.

I think so too.

[ackack]

A possibly different approach would be to replace the Haste spell with something different from what potions and wands do and giving the spell more direct drawbacks. I could imagine something like this:

Spell: Metabolic Boost
School: Charms / Transmutations (change the flavor if you want to get this to work with tmut)
Level: 6
Effect: While under the effect of this transmutation, the caster acts 100% faster. Using this transformation does serious damage to your body. For every turn the transformation is active, you suffer 2-5 points of irresistible damage. Transforming back to your regular form exhausts you, preventing you from reusing this ability immediately.

-------

Obviously you need to do some work on balancing it. Another possible approach would be Borg-style max hp reduction, maybe a 5% chance per turn the transmutation is active of losing 1 max hp. You could even scale the probability by HP aptitudes if you wanted, although I don't know how necessary it is.

[Volteccer_Jack]

Could we just bump Haste down to +25% speed instead of +50%?

All that does is make the bonus less impressive. It still makes your character 25% better at everything, it's just not as cool and exciting as the 50% version. If you wanna go that route, i'd rather raise the level to 7 or 8 rather than lower the power.

[Amnesiac]

All that does is make the bonus less impressive. It still makes your character 25% better at everything, it's just not as cool and exciting as the 50% version. If you wanna go that route, i'd rather raise the level to 7 or 8 rather than lower the power.

But that will just make wizards better than fighters. I think you are right, that just nerfing it will not solve all the problems with it, we could just leave swiftness and remove it completely maybe?.. Or replace it with some less overpowered buff. Maybe just make a stronger version of swiftness.

[Tiber]

I agree that just reducing the effect of haste won't really balance it. I just think the spell needs a real downside. Contamination means nothing until yellow status, so it only really makes people think twice about using it in quick succession. If you really have to do that you've done something wrong. My quick and lazy way of doing this would probably be to make it cause dexterity damage, attributing it to the unnatural speed putting stress on the body.

[Igxfl]

What if it did something really obnoxious, like preventing consumable use or causing extremely loud noises?

[Amnesiac]

Making it noisy would make stabbers weaker, then. And they are not terribly strong as they are. We could give it a chance to cause glow even from 1 use. At least it's not as nasty as permanent HP loss.

[Bloax]

If you're hasted, I doubt you'd care about noise - since you'll either be running (in which case outrunning stuff is still better than not) or actively causing noise already.

Disabling consumable use wouldn't substantially changing anything for master blaster casters. So both of those would only serve to make the effect obnoxious, without changing much of the actual problem.

[Amnesiac]

I sometimes use haste to close on my sleeping target faster.

[BlackSheep]

Haste doesn't aid stealth in any way. If you're moving through a crowd of monsters and some wake up, it can help you avoid the awake ones, but stealth only considers the number of actions of the player.

[Siegurt]

A few ideas on how to make Haste weaker, while making it still be useful:

1. Have the speed increase be relative to spell power, at low power, perhaps a 10% speed bonus, at top end power, it reaches it's current speed bonus.
2. Give it a shorter duration, with the same total amount of contamination, such that you'd need to cast it twice to have it last through the entirety of a tough fight.
3. Have the speed boost decrease over the duration of the spell, making it more useful for getting away than it would be a flat damage bonus.
4. Have hasted characters suffer a stealth, spellcasting and accuracy penalty (After all, it's harder to do things precisely if you're doing them faster than you're used to)

[Amnesiac]

1. Have the speed increase be relative to spell power

Again, this will just make mages stronger than other characters.

Haste doesn't aid stealth in any way. If you're moving through a crowd of monsters and some wake up, it can help you avoid the awake ones, but stealth only considers the number of actions of the player.

so if I worship cheibriados this wont give them twice as many "spot checks"?

[BlackSheep]

Yes.

[Igxfl]

Yeah, Nagas of Chei and hasted Spriggans have about the same chance to sneak up to a monster. It's kind of weird, but making faster things automatically sneakier would be worse.

[Siegurt]

1. Have the speed increase be relative to spell power

Again, this will just make mages stronger than other characters.

Although only if they invest enough to get charms maxed (I had 200 spell power in mind when I suggested that), I feel like if you've invested the XP to get charms to 27 and are wielding a staff of enchantment and wearing a robe of the archmagi and have 40 int, having haste give you that much of a bonus isn't a problem, particularly considering if you're doing all that and *haven't* maxed out your offensive spells, you're sacrificing something significant in your offensive spell power, or it's so late in the game it doesn't matter anyway.

It's not like mages get an inherent bonus to spell power without training, and actually I find I have more exp to spare with a melee character than I do with a mage.

I guess perhaps I perceive the problem to be more of a "gives you too much bonus for not enough required investment" than an "All things which make you attack faster are fundamentally flawed and will always be so"

[Arrhythmia]

1. Have the speed increase be relative to spell power

Again, this will just make mages stronger than other characters.

are wielding a staff of enchantment

Just a tiny side-note, but these don't exist anymore.

[Igxfl]

I did like the idea of cutting Haste with one of the less common spell schools. This would be a good way to force more XP investment as well as dilute the tendency for so many characters to load up on Charms.

[Siegurt]

Heheh, good point, I'd forgotten. Then the only way to get bonuses to spell power for charms is archmagi, which means you would need 75 int to actually get to max spellpower with archmagi and 27 charms.

[Igxfl]

Heheh, good point, I'd forgotten. Then the only way to get bonuses to spell power for charms is archmagi, which means you would need 75 int to actually get to max spellpower with archmagi and 27 charms.

The best part is that it would take a DEWz^Chei to get there...

[Arrhythmia]

Or some number of the Wild Magic mutations.

[TwilightPhoenix]

Really, just remove it. Attempting to balance Haste as a spell is just too hard. You're either going to get something that everyone wants, something that's so insignificant only a few people will bother with it, or something nobody wants because the drawbacks are too strong. That's just the nature of speed buffs in, well, pretty much every game ever. There's still potions and wands, so it'll still be around and we can keep a stronger Haste if it's not unlimited (barring Abyss and Pan scumming).

If removing Haste would somehow make Extended too hard (an argument I'm sure I've heard before), then that just means Extended really needs to be looked at. Removing one spell shouldn't make a portion of the game "too hard".

[Galefury]

Haste is pretty okay IMO.

Yes, people generally want to be able to use it on most chars in some form, wand or spell, or potions if you have to. The same is true for melee attacks. Or defensive skills. Yes, it's a very powerful spell (or wand), but the spell requires exp investment and the item requires quite a bit of luck. So it's not completely out of whack. I don't think the Haste effect warps gameplay around it any more than many other parts of crawl. More than some other parts, sure, but I don't think it's a big problem.

That being said, changing Haste to 1/3 speed increase or setting its level to 7 would probably be fine. But just leaving things as they are is also fine.

[XuaXua]

Make it Charms/Transmutations. Non-stackable with other Transmutations.

[Azrael]

Personally, I support the MP drain every turn idea. Gives it a real, noticeable downside.

[Sandman25]

all of tome4's haste abilities are insanely overpowered so there's that

Haste in crawl is even more overpowered IMHO. Even without Wands of Hasting.

[TwilightPhoenix]

The items are fine, since they're limited and you usually have to think about using them. The spell is: "Am I glowing or am I fighting popcorn? If neither, use Haste."

Plus, getting the spell and the skill level to cast Haste lets you make yourself 50% faster/better at just about everything any time you want. Raising any other skill, even to 27, or learning any other spell does not do that.

[ontoclasm]

A character with CBlink and skill in Tloc is probably at least 50% better than one with 0 in Tloc. A character with a battleaxe and skill in Axes is probably at least 50% better than one with 0 in Axes. A character with Nemelex and skill in Evocations is probably at least 50% better etc. etc.

[mikee]

A character with unarmed combat at 27 is at least 2000% as good as one with unarmed combat at 0.

[Amnesiac]

Then a character with uc at 27 and with haste is at least 3000% as good as one without both and 50% better then a character with just uc at 27

Anyway learning haste is a no-brainer which is against the philosophy of the game.

[eeviac]

haste is not enough of a problem to be worth the hassle of rebalancing the game in its absence.

there are many 'no-brainer' spells in the game: swiftness, rmsl, regen, blink... if you find them there is no reason outside of god conduct not to learn them.

[TwilightPhoenix]

Silly quotes about skill at 27 = absurd % value better than a 0 skill character

A character with the Haste spell is 50% better at melee with all weapons, ranged combat with all weapons, stabbing, closing distances, fleeing, drinking potions, using scrolls, invoking god abilities, evoking wands and other evocables, and a number of other movements than a character with the exact same skill levels, gear, and deity (sans Chei) but without Haste at almost any moment they choose to be. They're also +/- 50% more survivable because they can end combats in one fashion or another 50% faster. A character without it has six extra spell levels they can use and the option of worshipping Chei. They only thing they're equal at is Stealth since Stealth doesn't give a crap about how fast or slow you're moving.


Anyway, I don't see what rebalancing there'd need to be if Haste was removed. The three-rune game would be fine, though some people would scream their heads off at least as loudly as they did about a certain species removal. Extended would probably be harder, but extended needs a hell of an overhaul anyway (in my opinion at least).

[crate]

imo swiftness spell is still more overpowered than haste spell