Remove slow healing from bad mutations

[twelwe]

Some facts about getting bad mutations:

1. They're unavoidable. You will ger bad mutations.
2. They're removable. You will find ways to get rid of bad mutations, and if not, you can always go Zin.
3. Most of them change the way you play the game, but only one increases the time spent waiting around, doing absolutely nothing: slow healing

Slow healing encourages all sorts of bad behavior... hiding to heal, healing before every battle, healing after every battle when chunks are around, using permafood when healing when chunks aren't available, etc. You could say these present "interesting decisions," a BS argument when the decision needs to be made every 20 seconds. With slow healing you practically will become starving every time you try to recover a huge HP deficit. Healing by waiting in general is admitted by the devs to be such a bad mechanic that, along with food, it wouldn't even be in the game anymore if they weren't core mechanics that affect everything else. So why is there a mutation in the game that makes a clearly bad mechanic even worse? Why increase down time.

The best thing about getting rid of slow healing is that a more crippling mechanic can be put in place so long as it doesn't cause the player to quit because its so boring to wait around and starve three times a minute. I would take three of any other bad mutation instead of slow healing, to the point that that could even be the fix - roll slow healing and get three other bad mutations instead. Sounds fine to me. Someone else should please do this right away

[BlackSheep]

The baby that would be thrown out with this bath water is Slow Healing 3, which sounds like the type of crippling mechanic you have in mind as a replacement.

[jejorda2]

The ghoul food mechanic is fun. What if the slow healing mechanic were changed to be double-edged, such that you still gain hp slowly over time, but you gain hp along with nutrition when eating?

Then if you get hungry from waiting to heal, eating will top off your hp. And you can eat to heal during combat. It may not often be the best move, but it's something to consider when you have terrain or clouds or allies keeping enemies at bay.

[dpeg]

Hm, it seems as if we'd be better off with a two level mutation, of which level one does nothing, and level two stops innate healing. I just don't have no clue how it could be called.

jejorda: cool idea!

[jejorda2]

Another replacement mutation that could lead to deep dwarfism would be Limited Regeneration.
Level 1: When your hp is below 90% of max hp, you regenerate normally. When your hp is at 90% or above, you don't regenerate, but wands and potions of healing can get you to full hp, along with divine healing and vampirism.

Level 2: 50% hp is the new cutoff point: Resting will heal you up to 50% hp, but no further.

Level 3: No hp regeneration by resting at all, a la deep dwarves.

[spudwalt]

Another replacement mutation that could lead to deep dwarfism would be Limited Regeneration.
Level 1: When your hp is below 90% of max hp, you regenerate normally. When your hp is at 90% or above, you don't regenerate, but wands and potions of healing can get you to full hp, along with divine healing and vampirism.

Level 2: 50% hp is the new cutoff point: Resting will heal you up to 50% hp, but no further.

Level 3: No hp regeneration by resting at all, a la deep dwarves.

That's a cool idea. I wouldn't object too much to that (well, it would suck if I got it, but that's kinda the case for all bad mutations).

[Lasty]

oops, meant to thank jejorda2, but ran into a PHP error.

[MoogleDan]

This could be a whole lot more debilitating than it seems at first glance. Deep dwarf characters are generally built to have access to some kind of renewable, magical healing. A lot of other characters simply don't. At 90% it's really not too bad, slightly better than having Frail 1. Level 2 suddenly becomes about on par with Frail 5, however. I'd say make that 2nd rank around 70%, since 50% of your HP gone without expending consumables is a huge penalty, and the fact that it's 1.5x the loss from Frail 2 is made up for by access to "temporary" HP.

[dpeg]

jejorda: I took it to ##crawl-dev, and a lively discussion ended up with the following proposal I sent to the c-r-d mailing list:

Level 1: slower healing with hostile monsters in sight
Level 2: no healing with hostile monsters in sight
Level 3: no healing at all

I believe that the other proposals have some potential, so I listed them as well:

* Reduced innate healing threshold: 90%; 75%; 0% of maxhp.
* Innate healing only when eating; eating permafood; never.
* Innate healing only when Full; Very Full; never.

[Daggtex]

Could it then be listed as a lvl 3 innate Deep Dwarf mutation? Because otherwise I can see deep dwarves getting it and then laughing their heads off because it does nothing (or helps them if the code is implemented as an overwrite). Perhaps there is nothing wrong with that; I just feel it would make more sense to exclude them from it by giving them it already. Doing so would also make more new players realize the level 3 mechanic of no healing when they play deep dwarf.

[Kate]

Could it then be listed as a lvl 3 innate Deep Dwarf mutation?

That is exactly how current Slow Healing works, and obviously a replacement that has the same effect at level 3 would continue to work the same way, yes.

[Daggtex]

@ Marvin: Oh right, this would be a replacement Sorry; wasn't thinking straight.

[twelwe]

I'm sure its within the powers that be to leave the effects of slow healing 3 for DD while removing it from the rest of the game. It looks strange from a layman perspective to see "slow healing 3" as a trait for deep dwarves, when their healing isn't slowed at all, its stopped. "You do not regenerate naturally" or whatever it says in the mutations list is a lot more clear than "slow healing 3" but that is an entirely different issue. So ignore deep dwarves, they don't fit into the equation and it isn't necessary for whatever replaces slow healing to accommodate them.

[MoogleDan]

We could always just change the DD mutation from Slow Healing 3 to a completely separate No Healing. That would free up Slow Healing rank 3 to fit a bit better with the other possible ranks.